?■ 


BV  4915  . B43  1923  a 
Begbie,  Harold,  1871-1929. 
More  twice-born  men 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/rnoretwicebornmen00begb_0 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


MORE 

TWICE-BORN 


MEN 


NARRATIVES  OF  A  REGENT  MOVEMENT  IN 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  PERSONAL  RELIGION 


HAROLD  BEGBIE 


Author  of  “  Twice-Born  Men” 

(“  Twice-Born  Men  ”  was  published  in  England  under  the  title  of 
“Broken  Earthenware”) 


Nor  will  that  day  dawn  at  a  human  nod 
When,  bursting  through  the  network  superpos'd 
By  selfish  occupation — plot  and  plan 
Lust,  avarice,  envy — liberated  man, 

All  difference  with  his  fellow  man  compos’d, 
Shall  be  left  standing  face  to  face  with  God. 


Matthew  Arnold. 


G.P.  Putnam’s  Sons 

I^wYork  &  London 
U3je  ^nickerBocker  Prose 
1923 


Copyright,  1923 
by 

Harold  Begbie 

Published  in  England  under  the  title  “Life  Changers” 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 


LMOST  in  secret,  a  strange  work  has  been  going  on 


* *  for  the  last  two  or  three  years  among  the  under¬ 
graduates  of  many  universities,  not  only  here  in  Eng¬ 
land  but  all  over  the  world.  This  work,  of  which  the 


general  public  knows  nothing  at  all,  and  of  which  the  re¬ 


ligious  authorities  so  far  as  I  can  gather  have  never  heard, 
is  the  activity  of  a  single  person. 

Something  more  than  a  year  ago  I  made  the  acquaint¬ 
ance  of  this  man,  and  learned  from  him  that  he  considers 
privacy  essential  to  his  method,  at  any  rate  that  he  re¬ 
gards  publicity  as  a  grave  danger.  His  genius,  I  think, 
lies  in  thinking  with  an  intense  preoccupation  of  indi¬ 
vidual  persons.  To  him  the  man  is  much  more  than  the 
multitude,  the  part  infinitely  greater  than  the  whole, 
which  is  probably  true  in  the  spiritual  sphere.  Any  idea 
of  “mass  production”  in  his  work  is  to  him  dreadfully 
repellent.  Therefore  it  is  that  he  shuns  publication  of 
any  kind,  nurses  the  shadows  of  privacy,  and  never  for 
one  moment  dreams  of  calculating  his  gains  in  statistics. 

For  a  particular  reason  I  was  greatly  interested  in 
the  work  of  this  unusual  teacher.  I  found  that  he  was 
able  to  do,  quite  quietly,  rationally,  and  unconventionally, 
a  work  among  the  educated  and  the  refined  which  hitherto 
I  had  chiefly  associated  with  a  more  exciting  propaganda 
directed  to  the  broken  earthenware  of  our  discordant 
civilisations.  I  discovered  that  he  could  change  the  very 


VI 


PREFACE 


life  of  students  and  scholars  in  the  course  of  conversa¬ 
tion,  change  that  life  as  profoundly  and  persuasively  as 
ever  I  have  known  it  changed  by  emotional  missionaries 
among  the  ignorant  and  base.  Further,  I  discovered  that 
his  method  was  distinguished  by  a  single  characteristic, 
which  struck  me  at  once  as  going  to  the  very  heart  and 
soul  of  all  religious  difficulties. 

We  became  friends;  we  corresponded  with  each  other; 
at  intervals  we  met  and  discussed  the  progress  of  his 
work.  Then,  in  the  summer  of  last  year  (1922),  I  ac¬ 
cepted  an  invitation  to  meet  a  number  of  university  men 
from  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  who  were  to  gather  to¬ 
gether  in  a  house-party  for  the  purpose  of  discussing 
spiritual  experience  and  the  best  means  of  privately 
extending  this  remarkable  wrork  of  personal  religion. 

Those  memorable  days  began,  so  far  as  I  was  con¬ 
cerned,  with  disappointment,  even  with  disapproval.  I 
did  not  like  the  manner  in  which  the  early  discussions  were 
conducted;  many  of  the  phrases  used  in  describing  a 
really  unique  religious  experience  seemed  to  me  second¬ 
hand  and  unconvincing;  I  could  not  help  feeling  that  I 
was  not  merely  wasting  my  time,  but  that  I  was  fool¬ 
ishly  permitting  my  nerves  to  be  unprofitably  irritated. 

Some  of  the  younger  men  consulted  me  in  private  as 
to  my  opinion  of  their  teacher  and  his  method  of  con¬ 
ducting  these  house-parties.  I  told  them  of  my  disap¬ 
pointment  and  disapproval.  The  first  consequence  of 
this  confession  on  my  part  was  a  tendency  to  a  cave; 
I  found  myself  a  rallying-point  for  discontent  and 
mutiny.  But  this  danger  was  averted  by  the  extreme 
frankness  and  modesty  of  the  remarkable  man  who  had 
brought  us  together.  He  changed  the  manner  of  the 
public  discussions,  and  left  me  more  leisure  to  cultivate 


PREFACE 


Vll 


in  private  conversation  a  real  acquaintance  with  my 
fellow-guests.  From  that  moment  every  hour  of  my  visit 
became  interesting  to  a  degree  which  truly  one  cannot 
well  exaggerate. 

The  character  of  these  men,  some  of  them  so  brilliant 
in  scholarship,  others  so  splendid  in  athletics,  and  all  of 
them,  without  one  exception,  so  modest  and  so  gloriously 
honest,  was  responsible  for  my  reawakened  interest.  They 
were  men  of  the  first  class,  men  whom  one  may  fairly 
call  not  only  the  fine  flower  of  our  English-speaking 
civilisation,  but  representative  of  the  best  hope  we  possess 
of  weathering  the  storms  of  materialism  which  so  pal¬ 
pably  threaten  to  overwhelm  the  ship  which  carries  the 
spiritual  fortunes  of  humanity.  It  was  impossible  in  their 
company  to  doubt  any  longer  that  the  man  who  had 
changed  their  lives,  and  had  made  them  also  changers  of 
other  men’s  lives,  was  a  person  of  very  considerable  im¬ 
portance.  One  regarded  him  with  a  new  interest,  a  fresh 
reverence. 

Yet — and  this  was  perhaps  the  thought  which  most  in¬ 
fluenced  me  in  those  first  moments  of  hesitation — some 
of  these  men  spoke  to  me  with  troubled  criticism  of  their 
teacher,  disliking  some  of  his  pet  phrases,  disapproving 
as  vigorously  as  I  did  of  his  theological  opinions,  but  ail 
sticking  to  him  with  an  unconquerable  loyalty  as  the  man 
who  had  worked  a  great  miracle  in  their  lives,  and  who 
was  by  far  the  most  remarkable  man  of  their  experience 
in  spite  of  everything  that  troubled  either  their  taste  or 
their  judgment. 

Among  these  men  was  a  young  officer  who  had  not  yet 
undergone  a  spiritual  change,  and  who  carried  about 
with  him,  behind  a  charming  social  appearance,  a  soul 
that  was  haunted  to  the  point  of  torture  by  a  very  hor- 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


rible  sin.  I  walked  often  with  this  man  in  the  beautiful 
gardens  surrounding  the  house,  and  he  told  me  a  number 
of  extremely  moving  stories  of  his  experiences,  first  as  a 
pilot  in  the  war,  and  afterwards  as  a  trainer  of  pilots. 
He  could  not  bear  to  think  of  the  dead  boys  whom  he 
had  passed  as  fit  to  fly — many  of  them  killed  in  their  first 
or  second  flight.  But  every  now  and  then  he  would  turn 
from  the  war  to  speak  of  F.  B.,  the  teacher,  expressing 
an  anxious  doubt  as  to  whether  even  this  miracle-w*orker 
could  ever  save  him  from  an  intolerable  depression  of  the 
soul. 

This  doubt  was  uttered  in  no  dismal  or  tragical  man¬ 
ner,  but  with  a  smile  very  boyish  and  agreeable,  and  in  a 
tone  which  rather  suggested  that  he  looked  forward  to  his 
first  private  talk  with  F.  B.  as  little  more  than  a  curious 
experience.  He  smoked  many  cigarettes  in  a  rather 
feverish  fashion  as  he  spoke  to  me  of  “something  on  his 
mind,”  and  I  noticed  that  though  the  smile  seldom  left 
his  face  his  hands  trembled,  while  his  eyes  were  seldom 
clear  of  the  damp  of  secret  tears. 

On  the  last  night  of  the  house-party  F.  B.  called  this 
young  soldier  into  his  room  just  before  ten  o’clock.  When 
the  rest  of  us  went  up  to  bed  towards  midnight  he  was 
still  there.  Next  morning  as  I  was  entering  the  dining¬ 
room  I  felt  my  arm  touched  from  behind,  and,  turning 
about,  found  this  man  closing  up  to  my  side,  his  pale 
face  and  suffering  eyes  lighted  by  a  strange  smile  of 
boyish  gladness  and  triumphant  serenity,  in  spite  of  all 
the  marks  of  a  sleepless  night  and  great  spiritual  strain 
which  showed  behind  the  brightness  of  his  face  like  so 
many  bruises. 

He  asked  me  to  go  with  him  into  the  garden  for  a 
moment,  and  there  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  with  F.  B. 


PREFACE 


IX 


till  past  two  in  the  morning,  that  he  had  confessed  every¬ 
thing,  that  (laughing  quietly)  a  most  extraordinary 
change  had  taken  place  inside  him,  that  he  was  no  longer 
oppressed,  that  he  was  indeed  amazingly  happy,  and,  best 
thing  of  all,  he  now  had  a  definite  work  before  him.  F.  B. 
said,  he  told  me  on  a  deeper  note,  that  he  must  cross  the 
sea  to  a  far  country,  that  he  must  there  seek  out  a  youth 
whom  he  had  once  put  on  the  wrong  road  of  life,  that  he 
must  adopt  that  youth,  bring  him  back  to  England,  watch 
over  him,  and  never  leave  him  till  his  soul  was  right. 

The  profound  happiness  of  this  man,  and  his  deep 
joy  in  the  hard  and  difficult  task  which  he  had  most 
gladly  undertaken,  made  so  great  an  impression  upon 
me  that  I  presently  sought  out  F.  B.  and  told  him  of  my 
wish  to  write  this  book.  I  said  that  a  book  which  faith¬ 
fully  described  such  wonderful  work  might  do  something 
to  create  in  the  minds  of  many  people  a  new  and  intel¬ 
ligent  interest  in  religion ;  that  religion  was  losing  ground 
and  materialism  was  gaining  ground  chiefly  because  the 
power  of  religion  to  change  the  lives  of  men  was  now 
almost  wholly  unknown,  or,  if  known,  was  regarded  as  an 
example  of  mere  emotionalism  working  on  weak  intellects. 

He  agreed  with  this  contention,  stipulating  only  that 
no  mention  of  his  name  should  be  made  in  the  book  ;  he  left 
me  free  to  conclude  my  own  arrangements  with  those  of 
my  fellow-guests  who  seemed  most  likely  to  further  the 
purpose  in  my  mind. 

In  this  manner  the  pages  which  follow  came  to  be 
written. 


f 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface  ........  v 

I. — According  to  Thy  Faith  ....  3 

II. — The  Soul  Surgeon  .....  20 

III. — Greats  ........  38 

IV. — A  Rugger  Blue  ......  71 

V. — Persona  Grata  ......  85 

VI. — Beau  Ideal  .......  102 

VII. — Princeton  .  .  .  .  .  .  .117 

VIII. — A  Young  Soldier  ......  127 

IX. — The  Virginian  .  .  .  .  .  .137 


Conclusion — Immortality 


149 


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MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


CHAPTER  I 

t 

ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 

AT  the  outset  I  will  make  it  quite  plain  how  the  method 
of  F.  B.  chiefly  differs,  in  my  opinion,  from  the 
methods  of  most  other  men  engaged  in  work  of  this 
nature. 

But  I  must  be  frank  with  the  reader,  and  tell  him  at 
once  that  F.  B.  would  probably  correct  me  at  almost 
every  point  of  my  explanation,  thrusting  in  with  theo¬ 
logical  formulas  which  he  himself  considers  essential  to 
the  success  of  his  work. 

I  make  bold  to  think,  however,  on  the  same  ground 
which  entitles  the  least  of  us  to  say  that  the  onlooker 
sees  most  of  the  game,  that  I  discern  better  than  F.  B. 
himself  what  makes  his  work  so  extraordinarily  fruitful. 
This  would  be  an  insufferably  vain  assumption  if  I  had 
not  confirmed  my  opinion  on  several  occasions  in  dis¬ 
course  with  those  whose  lives  have  been  so  marvellouslv 
changed  under  the  influence  of  F.  B.  They  are  my  wit¬ 
nesses.  In  the  third  chapter  of  this  book  the  reader  will 
see  how  amply  I  am  justified  in  proffering  this  particular 
excuse  for  what  otherwise  would  certainly  be  an  imperti¬ 
nent  presumption. 


3 


4 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


When  a  man  who  has  heard  of  F.  B.,  or  has  met  him 
in  a  fellow-undergraduate’s  room,  goes  to  see  F.  B.  in 
private,  he  usually  begins  by  a  statement  of  his  theo¬ 
logical  difficulties. 

F.  B.  hears  him  out.  He  never  interrupts.  He  waits 
patiently  and  quite  unemotionally,  his  eyes  absorbed  in 
studying  the  eyes  of  his  visitor,  until  the  young  man’s 
mind  has  emptied  itself  of  all  its  intellectual  objections 
to  Christianity — those  grave  intellectual  objections  which 
distract  so  many  minds,  and  which  so  few  Christian 
apologists  ever  face  with  the  uncompromising  honesty 
taken  for  granted  among  men  of  science. 

Then  F.  B.  makes  this  remark !  “It  isn’t  any  intel¬ 
lectual  difficulty  which  is  keeping  you  from  God.  It  is 
sin.  You  are  a — ”  It  may  be  anything,  from  the  very 
worst  and  most  deadly  order  of  sinners  to  the  victim  of 
a  bad  habit  reckoned  by  some  people  to  be  comparatively 
harmless. 

In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  diagnosis  is  true,  for  he  is 
now  so  great  a  master  in  what  he  calls  soul-surgery  that 
he  knows  the  facial  indication  of  almost  every  sin  which 
men  think  they  can  keep  to  themselves.  But  the  correct¬ 
ness  of  the  diagnosis  is  not  the  point.  The  point  is  that 
he  brushes  aside  all  the  mental  excuses  of  a  distressed 
spirit  and  confronts  it  with  the  cold  and  deadly  truth 
that  it  is  sin,  a  sin  which  it  refuses  to  give  up,  does  not 
want  to  give  up,  and  will  not  give  up  without  a  tre¬ 
mendous  struggle,  which  is  locking  the  door  on  its  natural 
peace,  its  natural  happiness,  and  its  natural  power. 

The  theory  on  which  he  works  may  be  expressed  in 
simple  language  after  this  manner: 

Sin  is  a  word  which  denotes  a  choosing.  The  will 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


5 


chooses  the  bad.  It  is  its  duty,  in  the  interest  of  the 
world,  to  choose  the  good.  It  is  fatal  to  its  own  peace 
and  happiness  to  choose  the  bad.  But  it  chooses  the  bad. 
This  act  of  choosing  constitutes  the  sin. 

So  long  as  it  consents  to  the  slavery  of  the  bad  it 
cannot  perceive  that  to  choose  good  is  not  only  right, 
but  a  matter  of  the  first  importance  to  its  own  liberty. 
All  sin  is  reaction;  it  is  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
human  will  to  reverse  the  processes  of  evolution — to  go 
back,  not  to  go  forward ;  to  descend,  not  to  ascend.  The 
will  which  chooses  the  bad,  therefore,  is  in  opposition  to 
the  will  of  the  universe,  that  is  to  say,  the  Divine  Will, 
the  Will  of  God  immanent  in  evolution. 

In  order  to  be  free  from  the  tyranny  of  sin,  and  in 
order  to  gain  the  natural  liberty  of  a  will  in  harmony 
with  the  will  of  the  universe,  there  must  be,  first  and  fore¬ 
most,  a  desire  for  the  good.  Without  that  desire  the 
will  is  powerless.  But  let  that  desire  exist,  however  feebly 
or  intermittently,  and  the  enslaved  will  is  neither  helpless 
nor  hopeless.  Let  that  desire  become  the  strongest  and 
intensest  longing  of  the  heart,  and  not  only  can  the  will 
be  delivered  from  its  oppression,  but  a  change  of  the  will 
can  be  brought  about  so  complete,  so  pervasive  of  the 
whole  being,  so  creative  in  power  and  goodness,  that  it 
may  truly  be  described  as  a  new  birth  of  the  soul. 

No  man  can  sound  the  depths  of  his  own  natural  peace, 
or  rise  to  the  heights  of  his  own  natural  bliss,  who  is  not 
conscious  of  the  presence  and  the  companionship  of 
God.  This  consciousness  is  natural  to  the  soul  whose  will 
is  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
the  soul  whose  will  is  not  converted  to  the  divine  will. 
The  work  of  religion  is  to  create  a  longing  for  good  in 
the  soul  of  man,  so  that  it  may  escape  from  the  slavery 


6 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


of  sins  fatal  to  its  own  peace,  and  reach  its  highest  use¬ 
fulness  to  the  purposes  of  evolution  in  a  direct  and 
living  consciousness  of  God. 

Consciousness  of  God,  he  holds,  is  the  natural  state  of 
things.  Sin  is  unnatural,  and  prevents  the  natural  state 
of  things  from  obtaining.  Sin  is  unnatural  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  the  will  of  the  creature  opposing  itself  to  the 
will  of  the  Creator.  Always  it  is  sin,  and  only  it  is  sin, 
which  blinds  the  eyes  and  hardens  the  heart  of  mankind. 
It  may  be  the  smallest  of  sins,  one  of  those  sins  which  we 
describe  as  merely  amiable  weaknesses ;  but  let  it  be  in 
charge  of  a  soul  and  directing  its  course,  let  it  be  a  sin 
which  we  find  ourselves  unable  to  give  up,  which  we 
recognise  as  unworthy,  and  yet  cling  to,  and  we  are 
living  in  the  cold,  we  are  moving  in  the  shadows,  and  all 
our  faculties  are  in  gyves. 

I  think  this  point  of  view  helps  one  to  understand  how  it 
is  that  many  people  who  profess  religious  beliefs,  and  even 
devote  themselves  to  religious  work,  are  often  so  unattrac¬ 
tive,  so  entirely  lacking  not  only  in  power,  but  in  charm. 

It  would  seem  that  the  whole  matter  turns  upon  a 
complete  unison  of  the  two  wills,  the  divine  and  the  hu¬ 
man.  They  must  both  want  the  same  things  to  happen, 
they  must  both  desire  the  same  qualities,  they  must  both 
be  pursuing  the  same  end.  Discordance  between  the  will 
of  the  creature  and  the  will  of  its  Creator  results  in  a 
weakening  of  the  consciousness  of  God  in  the  heart  of  the 
creature.  Men  may  live  very  religiously  and  yet  fail  to 
dislodge  their  will  from  some  form  of  selfishness  which  is 
fatal  to  their  possession  by  the  grace  of  God.  They  may 
be  perfectly  pure,  and  yet  vain;  or  wonderfully  gener¬ 
ous  with  their  time  and  money,  yet  intolerantly  wedded 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


7 


to  their  own  ideas ;  or  they  may  lay  down  their  lives  for 
their  religion,  and  yet  never  have  loved  anybody  so  well 
as  themselves. 

Perfectly  to  realise  the  divine  companionship  seems  to 
depend  solely  and  exclusively  on  one  act  of  the  will,  an  act 
which  denies  all  the  values  of  the  animal  senses,  and  em¬ 
braces,  not  only  with  an  absolute  and  unquestioning  sur¬ 
render,  but  with  a  profound  love  and  an  ardent  craving 
for  satisfaction,  the  will  of  its  Creator.  Hence  at  the 
very  threshold  of  the  spiritual  life  one  is  confronted  by 
the  challenge  of  love.  No  one  can  proceed  far  on  that 
immortal  journey  who  does  not  perfectly  and  most  earn¬ 
estly  hunger  and  thirst  after  the  divine  excellence,  who 
does  not  long  for  perfection,  and  who  does  not  wish  with 
all  his  heart  to  be  rid  of  every  selfishness  which  disfigures 
character  and  impoverishes  spiritual  power. 

It  is  a  hard  challenge,  but  there  it  is ;  and  one  must 
agree  that  the  universe  itself  is  hard.  There  is  not  much 
discernible  softness  in  the  laws  of  Nature.  Spiritual 
laws  are  no  less  exacting,  so  far  as  one  can  see,  than  the 
laws  which  appear  to  govern  the  material  universe.  Per¬ 
haps  the  attribution  to  the  Deity  of  a  softness,  a  vacilla¬ 
tion,  and  a  sentimentalism  which  would  be  contemptible 
in  a  man,  has  done  far  more  to  weaken  in  humanity  the 
sense  of  the  moral  law  than  the  earlier  attribution  to  Him 
of  such  miserable  bad  qualities  as  jealousy,  vindictiveness, 
and  a  gross  partiality. 

Moreover,  if  we  are  quite  honest  and  rational,  must 
we  not  agree  that  this  spiritual  law  is  just?  And  if  it  is 
that,  who  shall  bring  a  charge  against  it?  History  is 
the  chronicle  of  an  ascent  on  the  part  of  man  from  un¬ 
questioning  animalism  to  a  disturbed  moral  consciousness. 


8 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


Each  step  has  been  made  by  the  deliberate  choice  of  man 
between  good  and  evil.  No  one  has  told  him  what  is 
good.  No  hand  has  guided  him  from  what  is  evil.  First 
for  his  own  safety,  and  afterwards  out  of  loyalty  to  the 
past  and  desire  for  a  nobler  future,  he  has  chosen  good 
and  rejected  evil.  Further,  with  each  difficult  ascent  he 
has  heightened  the  demands  of  good  and  widened  the 
categories  of  evil.  Each  Alp  of  his  toilsome  ascent  has  re¬ 
vealed  to  him  a  greater  height  to  be  reached,  a  more  diffi¬ 
cult  peak  to  be  scaled.  And  the  greatest  of  the  sons  of 
men,  those  who  have  carried  the  human  race  on  their 
shoulders,  have  not  complained  that  thus  it  should  be. 

Without  this  deliberate  and  unaided  election  for  good 
it  is  difficult  to  perceive  how  any  honourable  progress 
could  have  been  made  in  the  life  of  the  human  race.  And 
if  our  ancestors  made  that  election,  and  if  they  opposed 
themselves  to  all  the  gross  forces  of  materialism  in  the 
earliest  and  roughest  ages  of  the  human  epic,  are  we  now 
to  complain,  we  whose  lot  has  been  rendered  compara¬ 
tively  so  easy  by  their  heroic  endurance,  that  it  is  a  hard 
thing  to  expect  us  to  choose  good  rather  than  evil,  to 
give  our  wills  to  rightness  and  not  to  wrongness,,  to  excel¬ 
lence  and  not  to  imperfection? 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  not  now 
thinking  in  any  way  of  rewards  and  punishments.  The 
idea  of  heaven  and  hell  does  not  at  present  enter  into  our 
thoughts.  We  are  discussing  simply  the  question  of  indi¬ 
vidual  human  progress  here  upon  earth.  We  are  asking 
ourselves,  “How  can  a  man  ascend  from  brutality  to 
humanity,  from  weakness  to  power,  from  unrest  to  seren¬ 
ity?”  The  struggle  is  a  hard  one,  as  each  man  knows  for 
himself,  save  only  those  whose  souls  are  doped  by  the 
swill  in  the  trough  of  animalism.  In  order  to  render 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


9 


that  struggle  intelligible,  and  therefore  less  difficult,  we 
are  endeavouring,  in  the  spirit  of  men  of  science  exam¬ 
ining  the  physical  laws  of  the  material  universe,  to  dis¬ 
cover  the  spiritual  laws  of  the  universe  of  reality. 

In  this  inquiry  we  find  from  the  history  of  mankind 
that  ascent  is  the  consequence  of  desire.  The  greatest 
of  all  human  words,  because  it  denotes  the  greatest  of 
human  powers,  is  the  word  love — a  word  which  signifies 
desire  at  its  highest  intensity.  What  a  man  loves  with 
all  his  will  he  finds  it  easy  to  obtain ;  the  struggle  entailed 
in  getting  what  we  want  can  be  measured,  and  is  abso¬ 
lutely  determined,  by  the  quality  of  our  desire.  There  is 
no  injustice  in  the  condition,  “A cr  >rding  to  thy  Jth  be  it 
done  unto  thee.”  That  condition  represents,  indeed, 
man’s  idea  of  perfect  fairness.  To  hunger  and  thirst 
after  a  virtue  rightly  commands  that  virtue ;  half-heart¬ 
edly  to  wish  for  a  virtue  rightly  brings  only  a  fragment 
of  that  virtue  into  our  possession.  To  obtain  a  living 
and  creating  consciousness  of  the  divine  companionship 
our  wills  must  desire  that  blessing  to  the  extremest  in¬ 
tensity  of  love,  certainly  to  the  total  exclusion  of  our 
own  petty  wishes. 

M.  Cou£  confirms  the  teaching  of  Dr.  Milne  Bramwell, 
who  told  me  nearly  twenty  years  ago  that  auto-suggestion 
can  do  nothing  without  desire  on  the  part  of  the  patient. 
M.  Coue  tells  me  that  his  patients  cure  themselves  by  be¬ 
lieving  in  the  possibility  of  their  cures,  and  that  this  belief 
is  strong  or  weak  according  to  their  wish  for  healing. 
Many  people  afflicted  with  even  painful  diseases  do  not 
really  desire  to  be  cured  of  them — wherein  we  may  see 
a  spiritual  parable.  In  any  case,  neither  hypnotism  nor 
auto-suggestion  can  give  to  the  mind  a  notion  which  it 


10 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


does  not  possess ;  in  each  instance  desire  or  tendency  must 
be  there,  and  all  that  hypnotism  or  auto-suggestion  can 
do  is  to  stimulate  that  desire,  to  strengthen  that  tendency. 
“According  to  thy  faith  be  it  done  unto  thee.” 

This  brief  attempt  to  explain  in  untheological  lan¬ 
guage  the  lines  o  ,  which  my  friend  works  his  miracles  of 
conversion  may  I  elp  the  reader,  I  hope,  to  enter  with  a 
quicker  sympathy  and  a  more  rational  understanding 
into  the  narratives  which  follow.  I  do  not  think  that  we 
shall  make  any  serioi  3  progress  in  spiritual  experience 
if  we  continue  to  use  the  old  phrases  of  evangelicalism, 
particularly  if  we  merely  repeat  those  phrases  without 
thinking  what  they  mean.  For  example,  it  is  perfectly 
useless  for  a  man  to  profess  his  belief  that  “God  is  Love,” 
or  even  to  attempt  to  dwell,  however  reverently  and  long¬ 
ingly,  on  the  thought  of  this  divine  love,  until  he  grasps 
the  idea  that  love  is  a  word  signifying  desire  or  longing; 
then  he  is  able  to  see  that  the  creation  of  the  universe 
and  the  ascent  of  man  from  animalism  are  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  a  divine  desire,  a  divine  longing,  and  to  realise 
that  a  response  to  that  desire,  a  response  made  with  real 
intelligence  and  a  grateful  hope,  is  expected  of  him. 

This  familiar  phrase,  “God  is  Love,”  so  familiar  that 
very  few  people  think  what  it  means,  is  fundamental  to 
our  subject.  Science  is  coming  round  to  the  theory  of 
evolution  formulated  by  Lamarck,  driven  to  that  conver¬ 
sion  by  the  facts  of  the  physical  world;  and  the  master 
word  of  Lamarck’s  theory  is  the  word  appetency ,  which 
signifies  a  craving  after  the  satisfaction  of  desire.  Lhiless 
there  had  been  in  the  very  stuff  out  of  which  the  physical 
universe  is  composed — infinite  ages  before  the  appearance 
of  protoplasm — this  craving  for  the  satisfaction  of  desire 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


11 


there  could  have  been  no  creation,  no  evolution.  From 
the  inconceivable  beginning  of  this  vast  universe  there  was 
desire,  and  every  achievement  in  evolution  has  been  the 
consequence  of  desire. 

When  a  man  who  believes  in  the  sublime  theory  of  evo¬ 
lution  says  that  God  is  Love,  he  means  that  the  Creating 
Spirit  of  the  universe  is  moved  by  desire;  and  the  mani¬ 
fest  evolution  of  the  earth  from  ugliness  to  beauty,  and 
of  human  life  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  from  weakness 
to  power,  from  selfish  vice  to  unselfish  virtue,  justifies 
him  in  defining  the  desire  of  this  Creating  Spirit  as  a 
craving  to  bless,  a  passion  to  share,  a  longing  to  give. 
For  such  a  man  virtue  means  a  condition  of  the  human 
will  enabling  the  soul  to  receive  the  divine  blessing,  to 
share  the  divine  power,  and  to  possess  itself  of  the  divine 
gift — that  greatest  of  all  gifts,  the  grace  of  God. 

Religion,  then,  is  the  means  we  employ  to  quicken  the 
will  of  ascending  man,  so  that  he  may  consciously  choose 
good,  and  choose  it  with  the  knowledge  that  until  the 
whole  force  of  his  desires  are  at  the  back  of  this  volition 
he  can  never  find  it  easy  to  maintain  the  inexorable  strug¬ 
gle  of  evolution. 

How  does  this  view  square  with  the  findings  of  physi¬ 
cal  science?  Perfectly.  The  deeper  a  man  goes  into  the 
unassailable  facts  of  science  the  brighter  grows  the  ever¬ 
lasting  illumination  of  spiritual  truth.  Neither  philoso¬ 
phy  nor  theology  confirms  so  strongly  as  physical  science 
the  immense  fact,  perhaps  the  greatest  fact  in  human 
experience,  of  conversion. 

Let  us  look  at  the  most  recent  conclusions  of  scientific 
men.  It  is  now  held  that  protoplasm  is  a  late  and  com¬ 
plex  form  of  life.  Long  before  the  appearance  of  pro- 


12 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


tozoa  or  bacteria,  life  was  at  work  in  the  very  stuff  of 
which  the  universe  is  composed.  This  work  was  blindly 
and  unconsciously  accomplished;  life  was  forced  and 
driven,  as  it  were,  by  the  infinite  energy  of  the  universe 
to  fashion  the  framework  of  the  visible,  tangible,  and 
sonorous  world. 

For  millions  of  years  progress  depended  entirely  upon 
the  malleability  of  life  under  the  influence  of  this  energy ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  compelling  power  in  all  change  was 
environment.  If  pliant  and  sequacious  life  had  not  sub¬ 
mitted  to  the  influence  of  environment  the  world  would 
have  been  stagnant.  Observe  with  real  attention  that  the 
physical  globe  itself  was  responding  to  these  influences — 
the  ocean,  the  surface  of  the  earth,  the  substance  of  the 
atmosphere.  Science  speaks  of  “the  evolution  of  the 
earth,”  and  declares  that  there  have  been  at  least  six 
“major  readjustments  of  its  mass.”  It  is  changing  still, 
and  apparently  will  continue  to  change,  making  a  new 
environment  for  life  with  every  one  of  those  changes. 
Professor  Charles  Schuchert  tells  us  with  authority  that 
our  present  geography  is  “grander,  more  diversified,  and 
more  beautiful”  than  any  previous  geography  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  our  planet.  Beauty  and  grandeur  were  not 
wasted  on  the  initial  forms  of  life;  they  delayed  their 
coming  till  life  had  become  self-conscious,  till  it  could 
consciously  respond  to  their  influence. 

With  man,  whose  conscious  mind  could  thus  respond 
to  the  higher  influences  of  grandeur,  diversity,  and 
beauty,  evolution  came  to  a  crisis.  A  new  era  had  opened. 
Henceforth  progress  was  to  depend  not  so  much  upon 
the  power  of  the  environment  to  shape  and  mould  as  on 
the  power  of  the  human  mind  to  respond  consciously  and 
willingly  to  that  environment.  Life  became  not  the  slave, 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


13 


but  the  partner  of  the  infinite  energy.  Evolution  is  a 
progress  by  which  life  gradually  grows  out  of  domination 
by  its  environment,  and  becomes  able  to  dominate  that  en¬ 
vironment  by  working  in  association  with  its  laws.  “We 
master  Nature  by  obeying  her.” 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  modern  scientific  view  of  evolu¬ 
tion.  Men  no  longer  believe  in  a  special  creation  or  in  an 
accidental  tmiverse.  They  believe  in  an  evolution  brought 
about  by  the  pressure  of  natural  forces  (environment) 
and  by  a  response  to  that  pressure  on  the  part  of  the 
living  organism.  Professor  James  Simpson,  who  admir¬ 
ably  and  thoroughly  summarises  the  latest  views  of  physi¬ 
cal  science  in  Man  and  the  Attainment  of  Immortality , 
speaks  of  “purpose  or  desire”  immanent  in  evolution.  I 
will  quote  two  passages  from  his  book: 

The  idea  of  a  preconceived  plan  elaborated  in  detail 
is  replaced  by  that  of  a  purpose  or  desire  on  a  clear 
yet  broad  scale;  but  a  purpose  can  only  be  attained 
through  the  establishment  of  freedom.  In  organic 
life,  and  indeed  in  the  evolutionary  forms  as  a  whole, 
we  have  a  series  of  facts  which,  apart  from  a  teleo¬ 
logical  interpretation,  really  mean  nothing.  .  .  .  Things 
are  because  of  their  significance.  An  account,  however 
detailed,  of  a  human  tear,  in  terms  of  the  conception  of  it 
as  a  watery  secretion  from  the  lachrymal  glands,  would  be 
incomplete  to  the  degree  of  meaninglessness  without  some 
reference  to  the  emotion  of  joy  or  sorrow  of  which  it  was 
an  expression. 

With  this  reasonable  view  of  the  physical  universe  as 
an  expression  of  desire  on  the  part  of  the  Infinite  Energy, 
he  looks  at  man,  of  whom  it  can  be  “firmly  established 
that  he  is  an  integral  part  of  the  world  process,  so  inte- 


14 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


gral  that  it  almost  looks  as  if  it  had  required  the  whole 
long  process  from  Cambrian  days  to  the  Pliocene  to 
evolve  him,”  and  comes  to  this  rational  conclusion: 

Man,  thus  standing  in  direct  organic  relation  with  the 
world  process,  will  prove  that  there  is  something  about 
it  which  is  kin  to  him.  If  he  is  its  growing  point — that 
element  or  organ  by  which  Nature  becomes  conscious  of, 
and  best  reveals,  herself — then  everything  that  is  charac¬ 
teristic  of  man  at  his  noblest  is  predicable  of  her  in  some 
kind  of  way.  Just  because  of  that  very  intimate  relation 
of  him  to  the  process  it  follows  that  his  highest  character¬ 
istics  are  not  altogether  unrelated  to  the  process  itself,  and 
it  is  at  least  probable  that  the  characters  displayed  in  this 
highest  product  are  transcended  in  the  producing  Cause 
or  Ground.  Thus  to  argue  may  seem  to  be  illegitimate 
in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  inference  from  the  part  to  the 
whole;  but  the  criticism  fails  where  that  whole  stands  in 
a  genetic  relationship  to  the  part. 

Now,  it  is  clear  that  if  man  is  descended,  not  merely 
from  one  of  the  Primates,  but  from  the  very  stuff  of  which 
the  universe  is  composed — “Under  every  grave  lies  a 
World  History” — he  must  have  it  in  him  either  to  with¬ 
stand  or  to  accept  the  influence  of  environment.  His 
place  in  the  universe,  indeed,  is  the  direct  result  of  his 
response  to  environment.  Evolution,  as  Professor  Simp¬ 
son  says,  is  a  policeman  who  constantly  tells  the  proces¬ 
sion  of  the  human  race  to  move  on  and  to  move  up.  Those 
who  are  conscious  of  purpose  in  the  universe,  those  who 
perceive  that  environment  “in  its  ultimate  aspect  is  God,” 
obey  that  order,  and  moving  on  and  moving  up,  develop 
an  intense  spiritual  consciousness,  and  so  advance  the 
fortunes  of  mankind.  But  those  who  see  nothing  of 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


15 


grandeur,  diversity,  and  beauty  in  the  universe,  those  who 
deny  with  all  the  logical  force  of  the  animal  instincts  that 
self-sacrifice  is  a  higher  thing  than  self-indulgence,  and 
who  are  content  with  a  morality  which  keeps  them  out 
of  the  police-court,  refuse  to  obey  the  order  of  evolution, 
and  themselves  arrest  and  put  under  restraint  their  spirit¬ 
ual  growth. 

This  is  the  whole  story  of  the  human  race.  Some  men 
respond  to  the  call  of  the  End,  some  to  the  memory  of  the 
Beginning.  When  we  say  that  “righteousness  exalteth  a 
nation,”  we  mean  that  a  nation  which  continually 
heightens  the  demands  of  morality  will  advance,  while  a 
nation  which  lowers  those  demands  will  go  back.  History 
confirms  this  view  of  nations.  The  physician  tells  us 
that  it  is  true  of  the  individual.  The  good  man  has  a 
higher  survival  value  than  the  bad  man.  No  one  will 
contend  that  vice  (which  is  simply  a  return  to  the  animal 
past)  is  a  good  thing  either  for  health  or  character.  All 
of  us,  as  Dante  saw,  apprehend,  however  dimly,  a  bliss 
transcending  sensual  delights.  Epictetus  taught  us  to  live 
like  a  sailor  ashore,  who  ever  listens  for  a  call  from  his 
ship.  Victor  Hugo  bade  the  soul  to  regard  itself  here 
only  as  a  perching  bird. 

Be  as  the  bird,  that  halting  in  her  flight 
Awhile  in  boughs  too  slight. 

Feels  them  give  way  beneath  her  and  yet  sings. 
Knowing  that  she  hath  wings. 

In  perfect  accordance  with  the  findings  of  modern 
science,  religion  teaches  men  to  press  forward  from  the 
material  influences  of  the  past,  and  to  submit  themselves, 
thankfully  and  rejoicingly,  to  the  spiritual  influences  of 


16 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


the  future.  It  is  an  agent  of  evolution,  created  by  evolu¬ 
tion,  and  subjected  to  evolution.  It  has  a  history,  like  the 
structure  of  man,  or  like  the  geography  of  our  planet.  It 
began  in  the  valley  of  superstition;  it  rose  to  the  little 
hills  of  self-denying  morality ;  it  is  now  ascending  to  the 
mountain-peaks  of  acquiescence  and  love.  Its  future  is 
the  future  of  mankind. 

So  far  the  findings  of  science  and  religion  are  akin ; 
but  in  one  particular  religion  far  outstrips  laborious 
science  in  its  evolution  towards  the  ultimate  truth  of  life. 
It  teaches,  and  proves,  that  a  man  who  has  opposed  him¬ 
self  tooth  and  nail  to  the  pressure  of  evolution  and  to 
the  influence  of  environment,  who  has  not  only  returned 
to  the  animal,  but  who  has  made  himself  a  bad  animal, 
an  animal  so  bad  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  dipsoma¬ 
niac,  medical  science  pronounces  him  to  be  hopeless  and 
incurable,  may,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  lose  the 
terrific  appetites  of  his  degradation,  and  become  a  new 
man. 

This  is  not  a  theory  of  a  theologian.  It  is  one  of  the 
facts  of  religious  experience.  It  is,  indeed,  a  truth  of 
human  life  as  fixed,  as  eminent,  as  indestructible,  as  any 
truth  of  physical  science.  And  it  witnesses  as  much  to  the 
truth  of  physical  science  as  to  the  truth  of  religion.  For 
it  signifies  that  growth,  development,  and  progress  are 
determined  by  the  response  made  by  life  to  those  influences 
in  the  universe  which  from  the  beginnings  of  existence 
have  been  pressing  forward  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  Crea¬ 
tive  Will,  from  the  mean  to  the  great,  from  the  partial  to 
the  complete,  from  the  discordant  to  the  harmonious. 
The  good  man  travels  on  the  tide  of  God’s  purpose; 
the  bad  man  opposes  himself  to  all  the  forces  of  evolu¬ 
tion — he  would  go  back  to  the  past.  Let  him  then  turn 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


17 


about  and  the  very  waves  which  are  overwhelming  him 
will  sweep  him  forward  to  his  rightful  goal. 

Before  turning  to  the  narratives  which  witness  to  the 
power  of  a  particular  method  to  effect  conversion,  I  think 
it  essential  to  explain  in  what  manner — as  I  see  it,  not  as 
F.  B.  sees  it — the  Christ  of  the  Christian  religion  enters 
into  these  miracles. 

It  is  quite  certain,  in  my  opinion,  that  a  man  can  be 
turned  from  sin,  and  can  experience  that  merciful  change 
of  heart  and  will  which  we  call  a  new  birth  with  no  actual 
reference  to  any  of  the  orthodox  dogmas  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Merely  by  convincing  him  that  his  will  is  at 
variance  with  the  will  of  God,  and  that  so  long  as  his  will 
insists  upon  opposing  itself  to  the  will  of  his  Creator  he 
can  never  experience  consciousness  of  the  divine  reality, 
it  is  possible,  provided  always  that  the  desire  for  goodness 
is  genuine  and  strong,  to  create  in  that  man  a  new 
spirit. 

“Professor  Leuba  is  undoubtedly  right,”  says  William 
James,  “in  contending  that  the  conceptual  belief  about 
Christ’s  work,  although  so  often  efficacious  and  antece¬ 
dent,  is  really  accessory  and  non-essential,  and  that  the 
‘joyous  conviction’  can  also  come  by  far  older  channels 
than  this  conception.” 

There  is  no  need,  as  there  was  no  need  in  the  days  of 
Jesus,  to  present  a  complete  and  dogmatic  theology  to 
the  mind  of  the  seeker.  Love  of  God  is  still  the  first  com¬ 
mandment.  Love  of  God  and  love  of  man  are  still  the  only 
essentials.  It  may  be  true,  or  it  may  not  be  true,  that 
God  repented  of  His  creation,  that  Christ  came  upon 
earth  to  make  atonement  between  God  and  Man,  and  that 
because  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  God  is  now  willing 
to  accept  our  hearty  repentance  for  our  sins.  These 


18 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


teachings  may  be  true  or  untrue,  but  their  acceptance 
is  not  essential  to  the  great  and  wonderful  spiritual  ex¬ 
perience  of  conversion. 

Yet  Christ  enters  into  all  these  conversions.  It  is 
He  who  inspires  the  work.  It  is  He  who  authorises  the 
teaching.  It  is  He  who  encourages  the  seeker  to  believe 
and  the  abandoned  to  hope.  Jesus  need  not  be  described 
as  the  “Redeemer,”  need  not  be  explained  as  the  “Pro¬ 
pitiation”  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  need  not  be 
commended  as  our  “Advocate”  with  the  Father.  It  is 
sufficient  to  teach  with  His  teaching.  Love  of  God — the 
will  conformed  to  the  will  of  God,  the  heart  hungering 
and  thirsting  after  God,  the  affections  of  the  mind  set 
upon  the  things  of  God — this  is  sufficient  to  deliver  the 
soul  from  its  sins ;  and  this  is  the  heart  and  centre  of  the 
Galilean  revelation. 

In  all  this  the  spirit  of  Jesus  is  manifest.  For  not  only 
is  the  teaching  His  teaching,  but  in  Him  as  in  no  other 
being  who  has  ever  lifted  up  the  face  of  man  from  the 
dust  we  behold  the  Will  of  God,  the  divine  Will  which 
has  brought  creation  into  existence  and  set  in  motion  the 
laws  of  the  spiritual  universe.  He  impersonates  for  us  the 
inconceivable,  the  unimaginable,  the  infinite.  He  human¬ 
ises  the  superhuman,  He  leads  us  so  convincingly  out 
of  the  delusions  of  the  visible  and  so  confidently  into  the 
realities  of  the  invisible  that  truly  we  can  say  of  Him, 
He  came  from  God. 

With  this  understood,  one  can  proceed  to  the  narra¬ 
tives  ;  but  I  would  leave  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  as  a 
final  word  on  the  method  of  F.  B.  that  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  his  work  is  the  exclusive  and  pathologi¬ 
cal  emphasis  he  lays  on  the  power  of  sin  to  rob  a  man’s 


ACCORDING  TO  THY  FAITH 


19 


soul  of  its  natural  health — sin  being  understood,  not 
merely  as  great  vices,  but  as  any  motion  in  the  will  con¬ 
trary  to  such  excellence  as  that  soul  might  reach  by  a 
genuine  desire  for  spiritual  evolution. 

The  question  asked  of  man  by  the  universe  is  not 
“What  do  you  believe?”  but  “What  do  you  love?”  Any 
man  who  makes  honest  answer  to  that  simple  question  can 
determine  his  own  value  to  the  universe,  his  exact  place  in 
the  stages  of  evolution. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 

AS  I  have  already  hinted,  the  impressive  thing  in  F. 

B.  is  that  a  man  so  unimpressive  can  work  mira¬ 
cles — miracles  which  would  seem  to  demand  extraordinary 
qualities  of  mind.  He  helps  one  to  believe  that  truth 
may  yet  be  an  even  greater  force  in  human  affairs  than 
personality. 

In  appearance  he  is  a  young-looking  man  of  middle 
life,  tall,  upright,  stoutish,  clean-shaven,  spectacled,  with 
that  mien  of  scrupulous,  shampooed,  and  almost  medical 
cleanness,  or  freshness,  which  is  so  characteristic  of  the 
hygienic  American. 

His  carriage  and  his  gestures  are  distinguished  by  an 
invariable  alertness.  He  never  droops,  he  never  slouches. 
You  find  him  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  with  the 
same  quickness  of  eye  and  the  same  athletic  erectness  of 
body  which  seem  to  bring  a  breeze  into  the  breakfast- 
room.  Few  men  so  quiet  and  restrained  exhale  a  spirit 
of  such  contagious  well-being. 

A  slight  American  accent  marks  his  speech,  and  is 
perhaps  richly  noticeable  only  when  he  makes  use  of 
American  colloquialisms.  The  voice  is  low  but  vigorous, 
with  a  sincere  ring  of  friendliness  and  good  humour — the 

same  friendliness  and  good-humour  which  are  character- 

20 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


21 


istic  of  his  manners.  He  strikes  one  on  a  first  meeting  as 
a  warm-hearted  and  very  happy  man,  who  can  never  know 
what  it  is  to  be  either  physically  tired  or  mentally  bored. 
I  am  tempted  to  think  that  if  Mr.  Pickwick  had  given 
birth  to  a  son,  and  that  son  had  emigrated  in  boyhood  to 
America,  he  would  have  been  not  unlike  this  amiable  and 
friendly  surgeon  of  souls. 

Fuller  acquaintance  with  F.  B.  brings  to  one’s  mind  the 
knowledge  that  in  spite  of  his  boyish  cheerfulness  he  is 
of  the  house  and  lineage  of  all  true  mystics,  from  Plotinus 
to  Tolstoy.  His  mysticism,  indeed,  might  suggest  even 
a  surrender  to  superstition.  He  attributes,  without  ques¬ 
tion,  to  the  Deity  certain  motions  in  himself  which  another 
might  well  assign  to  movements  of  his  own  unconscious¬ 
ness.  For  example,  it  is  his  habit  to  wake  very  early  from 
sleep,  and  to  devote  an  hour  or  more  to  complete  silence 
of  soul  and  body ;  in  this  silence  he  is  listening  for  the 
voice  from  heaven,  and  the  voice  comes  to  him,  and  he 
receives  his  orders  for  the  day — he  is  to  write  to  one 
man,  he  is  to  call  upon  another,  and  so  on.  Psychologists 
would  tell  him  that  those  orders  proceed  from  his  own  un¬ 
consciousness,  and  are  the  fruit  of  sleep’s  mentation,  the 
harvest  of  his  yesterday’s  thoughts  and  solicitudes. 

Such  an  explanation,  of  course,  does  not  rob  these  mo¬ 
tions  of  their  spiritual  value.  But  it  is  an  explanation,  I 
think,  which  may  help  those  whose  conception  of  the  Deity 
entirely  prevents  them  from  believing  either  in  His  inter¬ 
position  or  His  colloquies  with  the  human  soul.  It  may 
help  such  as  these  to  realise  that  a  sincere  acquiescence  in 
the  divine  Will  may  enable  the  human  will  more  perfectly 
to  apprehend  the  spiritual  influences  of  its  environment, 
and  to  act  more  concordantly  upon  the  intuitions  of  its 


22 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


own  spirit.  Mystery  remains ;  but  it  is  a  mystery  which 
neither  detracts  from  the  unimaginable  glory  of  God  nor 
degrades  the  human  spirit  to  the  mechanical  level  of  a 
gramophone. 

The  mysticism  of  F.  B.  shows  itself  more  normally, 
and  one  might  almost  say  more  old-fashionedly,  in  his 
unquestioning  conviction  that  there  is  a  blessing  in  read¬ 
ing  the  Bible  (quite  apart  from  the  literary  blessing  of 
feeding  the  mind  on  such  beautiful  English),  and  also  in 
his  faith  that  sincere  prayer,  even  for  material  help,  is 
constantly  answered.  But  his  great  emphasis,  I  think, 
is  laid  on  spiritual  silence,  and  the  article  of  his  faith 
which  more  than  any  other  seems  to  give  him  his  unique 
power  is  the  mystical  notion  that  in  every  man  there  is 
“a  piece  of  divinity”  hungering  and  thirsting  for  expres¬ 
sion,  a  piece  of  divinity  which  best  makes  its  presence  felt 
to  the  soul  in  periods  of  silence. 

He  sees  a  significant  parable  in  the  scriptural  incident 
of  the  blind  man  healed  by  the  touch  of  Jesus.  At  the 
first  touch  of  those  gentle  fingers  the  blind  saw  men  walk¬ 
ing  as  trees ;  at  the  second  he  saw  “every  man  clearly.” 
F.  B.  tells  those  who  come  to  him  that  so  long  as  they 
see  men  in  the  mass,  see  them  as  a  forest,  their  spiritual 
eyes  are  only  half  opened;  to  see  them  individually,  man 
by  man,  and  each  man  a  piece  of  divinity,  an  heir  of 
eternal  life,  requires  the  second  touch  of  the  spiritual 
hand — the  miracle  of  conversion. 

One  of  the  phrases  he  never  tires  of  hammering  into 
the  minds  of  those  who  desire  to  help  the  progress  of  men 
religiously  is  borrowed,  I  believe,  from  the  Japanese:  “It’s 
no  use  throwing  eye-medicine  out  of  a  two-storey  win¬ 
dow.”  Drop  by  drop,  and  with  the  utmost  precision,  the 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


23 


extremest  care,  the  medicine  of  God  must  be  directed  to 
the  individual  soul.  He  holds  that  little  good  is  done  by 
the  extravagant  methods  of  so  many  religious  organisa¬ 
tions  to  make  Christians  of  men  in  the  mass.  He  goes 
even  further  than  this,  with  much  experience  to  justify 
him,  and  teaches  that  numbers  of  those  who  are  thus  so 
heroically  but  vainly  striving  to  Christianise  the  multi¬ 
tudes  are  themselves  strangers  to  the  central  power  and 
mystery  of  the  Christian  religion.  Let  me  say  at  once 
that  no  small  part  of  his  busy  life  is  devoted  to  the  con¬ 
version  of  religious  teachers,  many  of  whom  continue 
his  fervent  and  grateful  disciples. 

How  he  came  by  this  conviction  of  the  personal  charac¬ 
ter  of  religion,  this  intense  conviction  which  drives  him 
so  earnestly  and  successfully  on  his  happy  way — for  he 
is  a  man  of  extreme  happiness — may  appear  in  the  fol¬ 
lowing  brief  narrative  of  his  life. 

He  was  born  in  America,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four  was  ordained  into  the  ministry  of  a  Protestant 
Church.  A  theological  student  at  his  seminary  had  ac¬ 
cused  him  of  ambition,  and  to  correct  any  tendency  in 
that  course  F.  B.  chose  a  most  difficult  quarter  of  New 
York  for  his  initial  labours.  He  was  moderately  suc¬ 
cessful  in  his  work,  but  was  conscious  of  an  inner  hin¬ 
drance,  a  something  in  himself  which  prevented  the  great 
message  of  Christianity  from  “getting  through.”  He 
spent  a  year  as  a  missionary  in  the  Near  East,  and  in 
1908  paid  a  visit  to  England  with  the  express  intention 
of  attending  the  religious  convention  at  Keswick.  Here 
the  miracle  occurred  which  so  altered  his  life  that  ever 
since  he  has  been  able  to  show  a  great  host  of  people  how 
they  may  obtain  a  like  reconstruction. 

Weary  of  himself,  but  not  yet  sick  of  asking  what  he 


24 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


was,  and  what  he  ought  to  be,  this  young  American  one 
day  entered  a  little  village  church  in  Cumberland,  under 
whose  humble  roof  was  gathered  a  congregation  of  seven¬ 
teen  people.  The  service  was  taken  by  a  woman.  “My 
feelings,”  E.  B.  has  told  me,  “were  very  unhappy;  I  won’t 
call  them  despairing;  they  were  just  feelings  of  great  un¬ 
happiness.  Grudges  against  certain  religious  people  were 
there  in  my  mind,  fermenting;  I  felt  that  I  could  justly 
accuse  those  men  of  hard-heartedness,  high-handedness, 
bigotry.  They  had  alwa}^s  seemed  to  be  opposing  me — 
opposing  my  work.  Yet  the  main  cause  of  my  disquiet 
was  the  knowledge  of  my  own  heart  that  it  was  guilty  of 
three  things,  sticking  there  like  glue,  stopping  all  the  free 
working  of  the  generosity  and  happiness  I  longed  to  ex¬ 
perience — selfishness,  pride,  ill-will.  These  three  things 
were  in  my  blood — selfishness,  pride,  ill-will ;  I  could  not 
get  rid  of  them ;  while  they  were  there  I  knew  that  the 
better  part  of  me  couldn’t  function  as  it  ought.  Think 
of  it — selfishness,  pride,  ill-will ;  and  I  called  myself  a 
Christian,  tried  to  make  other  people  Christians !” 

The  woman  preacher — F.  B.  does  not  know  her  name 
— spoke  of  some  particular  aspect  of  the  cross — he  does 
not  now  recall  precisely  what  that  aspect  was,  but  he  says 
that  in  some  manner  for  which  he  cannot  account  her 
quite  simple  words  “personalised  the  Cross,”  and  that 
while  he  brooded  on  this  idea  in  a  reverie  of  mind  there 
came  to  him,  very  palpably  and  with  a  most  poignant 
realism,  albeit  with  no  suddenness,  no  dramatic  intensity, 
a  vision  of  the  Crucified. 

He  was  conscious  at  once  of  two  shuddering  realisa¬ 
tions — the  realisation  of  a  great  abyss  between  him  and 
the  suffering  Christ,  the  realisation  of  an  infinite  sorrow 
in  the  face  of  his  Master.  These  realisations  dissipated 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


25 


the  chaos  in  his  mind.  There  was  now  no  hesitancy,  no 
feeling  of  a  divided  will,  no  sense  of  calculation  and  argu¬ 
ment  ;  a  wave  of  strong  emotion,  rising  up  within  him  from 
the  depths  of  his  estranged  spiritual  life,  seemed,  as  it 
were,  to  lift  his  soul  from  its  anchorage  of  selfishness  and 
to  bear  it  across  that  great  sundering  abyss  to  the  foot 
of  the  Cross.  There  he  made  his  surrender  to  the  divine 
Will ;  there  he  lost  all  sense  of  oppression  and  helplessness. 
It  was  the  work  of  a  moment,  and  a  gesture  of  his  spirit 
invisible  to  human  eyes. 

I  asked  him  to  recall  if  he  could  the  physical  sensa¬ 
tions  of  that  moment  of  surrender,  so  that  the  reality 
of  his  experience  might  not  fade  from  my  mind,  in  the 
rather  conventional  language  of  revivalism.  How  would 
he  describe  to  a  doctor  what  happened  to  him?  How 
would  he  tell  that  experience  to  a  man  who  had  never 
heard  of  Jesus? 

He  said,  “I  remember  one  sensation  very  distinctly ; 
it  was  a  vibrant  feeling  up  and  down  the  spine,  as  if  a 
strong  current  of  life  had  suddenly  been  poured  into  me. 
That  followed  on  my  surrender.  No ;  it  came  at  the  same 
time.  It  was  instantaneous.” 

What  followed  on  this  sensation  of  an  electric  current, 
he  remembers,  was  the  dazed  feeling  of  “a  great  shaking 
up.”  He  sat  for  some  moments  in  a  certain  confusion  of 
mind,  not  trembling  in  the  body,  but  conscious  of  a  long 
vibration  in  his  soul,  as  though  it  was  still  throbbing 
under  the  shock  of  this  new  experience.  There  was  no 
immediate  feeling  of  lightness,  no  rejoicing  sense  of  de¬ 
liverance  and  liberation.  He  was  conscious  of  a  very 
mighty  change  in  himself,  but  for  some  time  could  only 
think  of  that  change  in  terms  of  its  physical  effects. 


26 


MORE  TWICE-RORN  MEN 


He  returned  to  the  house  at  which  he  was  staying,  and 
told  at  the  table  of  his  hostess  what  had  happened  to  him. 
He  related  this  experience  in  simple  language,  and  with 
no  emotion,  relating  it,  however,  with  the  natural  pleasure 
of  one  who  has  made  an  important  discovery.  There  was 
a  Cambridge  man  staying  in  the  house,  and  after  luncheon 
this  man  asked  F.  B.  to  go  for  a  walk  with  him.  They 
walked  for  some  hours  round  the  lake,  and  it  was  during 
this  walk  that  both  illumination  and  relief  came  to  the 
surgeon  of  souls.  He  said,  in  his  explanation  to  the  other, 
that  to  keep  his  sense  of  the  divine  his  heart  must  be 
empty  of  all  sin,  of  every  vestige  of  his  discordant  past. 
There  and  then  he  decided  to  write  six  letters  to  those 
men  in  America  against  whom  he  had  long  borne  a  justi¬ 
fiable  grudge,  letters  acknowledging  his  ill-will  towards 
them,  asking  them  for  their  forgiveness,  and  proffering 
his  friendship. 

The  relief  which  came  to  him  with  this  decision  had  a 
determining  effect  on  his  life ;  it  taught  him  to  believe  that 
there  can  be  no  living  and  transforming  sense  of  unity 
with  the  divine  Will,  no  “God  Consciousness”  as  he  calls 
it,  so  long  as  the  heart  is  clogged  and  smothered  by  any 
obstinate  trace  of  selfishness.  There  must  be  open  con¬ 
fession,  complete  and  unequivocating  restitution. 

The  fact  that  he  received  no  replies  to  his  letters  did 
not  daunt  the  happiness  which  had  now  come  to  him  from 
his  unbroken  sense  of  the  divine  companionship.  That 
fact  made  him  realise  all  the  more  sharply  how  hard  it  is 
— nay,  but  impossible — for  a  proud  heart,  however  virtu¬ 
ous,  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  love.  Moreover,  his 
walk  by  the  lakeside  had  brought  illumination  to  another 
man,  and  now  the  way  was  clear  before  his  feet.  He  had 
been  changed ;  he  could  be  the  means  of  changing  others. 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


27 


The  logic  of  this  conversion  can  be  expressed  in  very 
simple  language,  and  in  language  which  no  man  of  science 
who  has  the  smallest  practical  acquaintance  with  experi¬ 
mental  psychology  will  feel  it  in  his  heart  to  resent. 

A  will  which  is  divided,  which  is  conscious  of  opposite 
tuggings,  which  is  never  able  to  give  itself  freely  either 
in  the  one  direction  or  the  other,  obviously  cannot  func¬ 
tion  in  the  only  way  proper  to  a  will.  It  is  in  a  condition 
fatal  to  its  health,  fatal  to  its  nature.  Like  a  muscle 
seldom  exercised,  it  is  on  the  way  to  atrophy.  One  may 
indeed  find  it  difficult  to  explain  how  a  will  which  is  not 
actuated  by  self-determination — a  glad,  rejoicing,  and 
never  challenged  self-determination — can  be  thought  of 
in  any  terms  of  volition,  can  be  named  a  will. 

A  man  who  carries  about  with  him  such  a  will  as  this 
obviously  cannot  be  a  happy  man.  In  the  sphere  of  the 
intellect  he  may  make  shift  with  unsettled  opinions,  and, 
like  the  famous  bishop  of  Browning,  exercise  his  comfort¬ 
able  choice  between  a  life  of  faith  diversified  by  doubt 
and  a  life  of  doubt  diversified  by  faith.  But  this  will  not 
do  in  the  sphere  of  action — the  true  sphere  of  the  will.  A 
man  cannot  say  to  himself  with  any  reasonable  prospect 
of  happiness,  “I  will  live  a  life  of  love  diversified  by  hate,” 
or  “I  will  devote  some  of  my  time  to  seeking  truth,  and 
some  of  it  to  propagating  error.”  On  the  face  of  it, 
peace  of  mind  demands  a  coherent  will.  The  will  must 
be  doing  what  it  wants  to  do — -be  it  good  or  evil — if  it 
is  to  be  unconscious  of  hindrance. 

It  is  plain  to  us  that  the  distressed  condition  of  F.  B.’s 
mind  was  a  consequence  of  his  divided  will.  He  half- 
wanted  to  do  a  thing,  and  he  half-wanted  not  to  do  that 
thing.  Whether  the  vision  in  the  little  Cumberland 
church  was  subjective  or  objective,  whether  it  was  a  genu- 


28 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


ine  apparition — that  is  to  say,  an  operation  of  spiritual 
law  not  yet  investigated  by  the  human  mind — or  a  sudden 
obedience  of  the  physical  senses  to  a  morbid  pressure  of 
nervous  energy,  does  not  seem  to  me  of  great  importance. 
The  fact  which  appears  salient,  and  hopeful  of  intelligent 
understanding,  is  the  fact  that  this  suffering  mind  was 
immediately  healed  by  a  decision  definitely  and  absolutely 
to  exercise  its  will  henceforth  in  one  single  direction. 

There  is  here  no  argument  for  religion.  A  man  half- 
afraid  to  go  to  the  devil  might  find  himself  delivered  from 
distress  of  mind  by  flinging  aside  his  former  hesitancies 
and  entering  with  a  whole  hearTand  a  whole  will  into  the 
satanic  service.  The  point  is  that  all  success  demands 
the  will  at  the  back  of  it.  A  man  cannot  be  happy  in  a 
life  of  vice  so  long  as  he  is  conscious  of  moral  scruples ; 
and  a  man  cannot  be  happy  in  a  life  of  virtue  so  long  as 
any  of  his  inclinations  bear  him  towards  vice.  The  de¬ 
mand  of  both  God  and  Satan  is  identical — the  whole 
heart. 

The  deepest  thing  in  our  nature,  said  William  James, 
is  this  dumb  region  of  the  heart  in  which  we  dwell  alone 
with  our  willingnesses  and  unwillingnesses ;  “in  these 
depths  of  personality  the  sources  of  all  our  outer  deeds 
and  decisions  take  their  rise.” 

This  is  psychology — the  psychology  of  world  history, 
the  psychology  of  every  man’s  experience.  We  may  hold 
this  same  clue  in  our  hands  as  we  go  forward  to  consider 
the  second  stage  in  the  conversion  of  F.  B.  He  found  that 
a  great  happiness  came  to  him  with  the  decision  to  exert 
his  unified  will  in  the  service  of  One  who  proclaimed  the 
reality  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  pronounced  the  values 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


29 


of  instinctive  materialism  to  be  illusions.  He  discovered, 
in  describing  this  experience  to  another  man,  that  what 
had  hindered  him  from  long  ago  making  this  decision  was 
sin.  Sin  is  a  theological  term,  but  it  is  also  a  practical 
term — a  term  of  world  history,  a  term  of  every  man’s  ex¬ 
perience.  It  signifies  error. 

Sin  is  that  which  hinders  the  evolution  of  the  human 
race  and  the  growth  of  the  individual  man.  It  may  be 
drunkenness  or  a  false  theory  in  art.  It  may  be  murder 
or  pride ;  it  may  be  dishonesty  or  intolerance.  It  is  any¬ 
thing  which  impoverishes  spiritual  power,  and  deflects  the 
personality  from  fulfilling  its  highest  purposes.  Per¬ 
haps  it  is  best  seen  in  its  effect  on  a  State.  “What  is  the 
German  suffering  from,”  asked  Professor  Hobhouse  dur¬ 
ing  the  war,  “but  a  great  illusion  that  the  State  is  some¬ 
thing  more  than  man,  and  that  power  is  more  than  jus¬ 
tice?”  Sin  brought  the  glory  of  Babylonia  to  the  dust. 
Sin  dug  the  grave  of  Athens.  Sin  destroyed  so  majestic 
a  political  experiment  as  the  Roman  Empire.  Sin — the  v 
sin  of  unconscionable  greed  wedded  to  a  piety  that  was 
either  traditional  or  insincere  where  it  was  not  actually 
hypocritical — corrupted  the  industrial  achievements  of 
England  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  left  us  a  heri¬ 
tage  of  social  problems  not  yet  solved.  What  sin  has  i 
done,  and  is  still  doing,  for  Russia,  Ireland,  Greece,  and 
Turkey,  let  every  man  judge  for  himself. 

Another  palpable  aspect  of  sin  is  to  be  seen  in  those  in¬ 
stitutions  of  civilisation  which  law  and  charity  erect  either 
for  the  punishment  or  the  curing  of  its  victims.  How 
many  millions  of  money  are  spent  in  every  chief  country 
of  the  world  on  prisons  and  police-systems,  on  lunatic 
asylums  and  hospitals,  and  how  many  men  and  women 


30 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


wasted  in  staffing  them?  Is  not  the  philanthropy  of 
mankind  saddled  with  huge  and  increasing  liabilities  for 
the  children  of  neglectful  and  even  cruel  parents?  Are 
not  the  navies  and  armies  of  Europe,  the  expense  of 
which  presses  so  heavily  on  the  industrial,  political,  and 
domestic  life  of  nations,  witnesses  to  a  state  of  mind 
wholly  at  variance  with  an  unbestial  outlook?  No  man 
will  argue  either  that  sin  is  not  responsible  for  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  national  expenditure,  or  that  a  State 
would  not  be  in  a  better  position  to  explore  the  future  of 
mankind  if  it  were  not  for  its  multitudes  of  sinners.1  Is 
it  not  enough  for  us  that  we  speak  of  a  particularly  con¬ 
temptible  sinner  as  a  “degenerate”? 

In  the  same  fashion,  sin  operates  disastrously  in  the 
individual.  Its  effect  is  represented  by  all  those  motions 
of  his  will  towards  things  which  offer  no  ultimate  satisfac¬ 
tion  to  his  nature.  It  stands  in  his  life  for  hindrance  and 
impediment.  It  is  best  described,  perhaps,  as  mutiny 
towards  evolution.  The  sinner  is  like  a  cell  in  the  body 
which  refuses  to  grow;  it  is  the  cancer  of  spiritual  life. 
A  man  cannot  do  his  duty  towards  the  world  who  is  not 
growing  away  from  that  world’s  past.  The  immense  em¬ 
phasis  laid  on  sin  by  religion  is  justified  by  the  interests 
of  civilisation.  The  easy  forgiveness  of  sin  promised  by 
some  of  the  great  Churches  of  the  Christian  religion  is 
as  perilous  to  those  high  interests  of  civilisation  as  the 
thousand  enticements  of  a  sensual  materialism. 

All  this,  I  think,  will  be  accepted  by  most  men.  The 
question  remains,  How  are  we  to  get  rid  of  sin?  How 

1  The  cost  to  Great  Britain  for  the  year  ending  March,  1921,  of 
Law,  Justice,  Health  Insurance,  Poor  Relief,  Reformatories,  Child 
Welfare,  Inebriates,  and  Lunatics  exceeded  £80,000,000. 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


31 


are  we  to  free  our  wills  from  the  fettering  of  the  past? 
It  is  here  that  F.  B.  seems  to  help  us.  He  says  that  the 
degree  of  our  immunity  from  moral  disease  is  governed 
absolutely  by  the  degree  of  our  desire  for  moral  health. 
If  we  complain  that  we  are  slaves  to  sin,  we  confess  that 
wTe  desire  sin.  If  we  say  that  at  certain  times  we  are 
overtaken  by  sin,  we  proclaim  that  we  are  not  travelling 
on  the  road  of  virtue.  Sin  is  neither  footpad  nor  assas¬ 
sin;  it  lives,  and  can  only  live,  in  the  heart  which  does 
not  love  goodness  with  all  its  strength,  with  all  its  earn¬ 
estness,  and  with  all  its  appetency. 

He  came  by  this  conviction  in  a  manner  calculated 
to  make  an  ineffaceable  impression  on  his  mind.  Soon 
after  his  conversion  he  devoted  himself  with  great  enthu¬ 
siasm  to  the  work  of  educating  in  the  knowledge  of  per¬ 
sonal  religion  theological  students  and  other  young  men 
following  in  various  ways  the  religious  life.  His  idea  was 
to  help  these  eager  and  noble  disciples  of  his  Master  to 
be  more  successful  in  their  sacred  work,  to  teach  them 
how  they  should  lay  their  main  emphasis  on  personal  re¬ 
ligion,  and  how  they  should  guard  themselves  against  the 
destroying  influences  of  ecclesiastical  mechanism.  But, 
at  the  very  threshold  of  this  new  experience  he  encoun¬ 
tered  the  old  enemy.  There,  in  the  heart  of  even  the  theo¬ 
logical  student,  he  found  this  old  enemy  deeply  en¬ 
trenched,  sin  in  one  form  or  another  holding  the  citadel 
against  all  the  elegant  deployments  of  divinity.  In  secret 
the  theological  student  was  fighting  his  sin — perhaps  one 
of  those  secret  sins  which  prey  on  spiritual  vitality  and 
attack  so  destructively  the  sensitive  nerve  of  a  man’s  self- 
respect  ;  he  was  fighting  it  in  various  ways,  orthodox 
ways,  but  fighting  it  in  vain. 

Then  came  enlightenment  from  F.  B.  That  despised 


m 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


sin  could  not  so  tremendously  afflict  him  if  he  loved  good¬ 
ness.  Its  strength  was  not  great;  the  feebleness  of  the 
victim’s  desire  for  God  alone  enabled  it  to  play  the  part 
of  tyrant ;  it  would  disappear  as  if  it  had  never  been  im¬ 
mediately  he  craved  for  righteousness  with  his  whole 
heart,  his  whole  spirit.  Then  followed  a  new  understand¬ 
ing  of  the  great  teaching,  “ Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, 
for  they  shall  see  God .” 

in  the  society 

of  F.  B.,  who  has  gone  with  him  on  missions  to  many 
countries  in  the  East  as  well  as  to  most  countries  in 
Europe,  spoke  to  me  of  the  wonderful  effect  produced 
by  this  honest  teaching. 

“A  man,”  he  said,  “who  hides  from  the  knowledge  of 
the  world  a  secret  sin  may  go  and  confess  it  to  a  priest, 
but  except  for  the  mental  relief  of  confession  there  is  sel¬ 
dom  great  spiritual  benefit ;  still  more  seldom  is  there  a 
new  birth.  The  reason  is,  as  F.  B.  teaches  us,  that  the 
sufferer  is  only  ashed  if  he  repents  of  his  sin;  he  is  not 
subjected  to  a  merciless  cross-examination.  At  the  mo¬ 
ment  of  his  confession  he  does  repent ;  he  is  there  on  his 
knees  because  he  hates  that  sin,  and  wants  to  be  free  of 
it;  therefore,  quite  truthfully,  he  replies  to  the  question 
whether  he  repents  of  his  sin  with  a  pathetic  affirmative 
and  he  is  forgiven.  Perhaps  after  the  forgiveness  there 
is  a  word  or  two  on  attending  church  services,  saying  his 
prayers,  and  reading  certain  books.  But  the  man  goes 
out  from  confession  with  the  root  of  disease  still  in  his 
heart. 

“Now  with  F.  it  is  quite  different.  He  would  regard 
such  a  man  as  this  with  real  hope.  He  often  says  that  a 
person  in  pain  can  easily  be  healed ;  it  is  the  person  asleep 


One  of  the  men  who  has  been  constantly 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


S3 


who  tries  him  hardest.  He  deals  with  the  secret  sinner 
not  emotionally,  not  credally.  He  tells  him  that  his  sin 
is  ‘walling  him  in  from  God.’  He  exposes  it  as  a  deliber¬ 
ate  structure  of  the  man’s  will  raised  against  conscious¬ 
ness  of  God.  The  man  may  protest  that  he  desires  this 
consciousness  of  God,  prays  for  it,  hungers  for  it,  that  his 
whole  life  is  directed  to  acquiring  it.  F.  tells  him  that  he 
is  deceiving  himself.  He  sa}^s,  ‘God  comes  to  us  when  we 
ask  Him.’  If  the  man  again  protests  that  he  has  asked 
God  again  and  again  to  come  to  him,  F.  asks,  ‘With  your 
whole  will?’  Then  he  explains  that  the  sufferer  is  at¬ 
tempting  to  lie  to  himself,  as  well  as  to  God,  and  that  it  is 
only  disease,  this  secret  sin,  which  could  make  him  so 
foolish.  From  that  he  proceeds  to  getting  the  sin  into 
the  open,  and  showing  it  to  its  victim  in  all  its  horror  and 
loathsomeness.  He  uses  the  knife,  for  he  is  a  surgeon  and 
no  dispenser  of  drugs.  He  doesn’t  believe  in  narcotics ; 
he  believes  in  eradicating  the  disease,  cutting  it  clean  out 
by  the  roots.  He  is  terribly  incisive,  in  love.  He  makes 
you  hate  your  sin,  almost  yourself,  but  he  makes  you  feel 
he  cares  for  you  all  the  time.  After  this  it  is  a  matter  for 
the  man’s  will.  Hatred  of  his  sin,  and  a  real  longing  to 
be  rid  of  it,  a  real  longing  for  freedom  and  health  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  passionate  craving  for  the  consciousness  of 
God  in  his  soul,  sooner  or  later,  very  often  immediatel}7, 
will  give  him  a  new  will.  It  is  F.’s  ruthless  insistence  on 
sin  as  an  act  of  the  will,  a  deliberate  act,  an  act  of  the 
affections,  which  rouses  men  in  this  case  to  confront  the 
truth  of  their  condition. 

“Finally,  when  he  has  done  his  work  as  a  surgeon,  he 
becomes  a  physican.  He  tells  men  whom  he  has  thus 
awakened  from  sleep  or  delivered  from  disease  that  they 
may  very  easily,  all  the  same,  become  spiritually  liverish, 


34 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


and  spiritually  feeble,  and  spiritually  rheumatic,  unless 
they  exercise  their  spiritual  qualities.  So  he  makes  them, 
whatever  their  professions  are  or  may  be,  helpers  of  other 
men,  savers  of  other  souls.  In  one  way  or  another  they 
have  to  be  living  unselfishly  for  the  highest  sake  of  other 
people.  It  is  in  that  life,  he  tells  them,  they  will  find  their 
greatest  happiness,  because  it  is  only  in  such  a  life 
that  man  can  enjoy  an  uninterrupted  consciousness  of 
God.” 

F.  B.  says  that  anything  is  sin  which  prevents  him 
from  being  a  miracle-worker.  He  teaches  that  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  hate  sin,  forsake  sin,  confess  sin,  and  to  make 
restitution.  “This  is  taking  a  daily  spiritual  bath.”  The 
heart  must  be  cleansed  of  all  iniquity. 

One  whose  life  has  been  changed  by  him,  and  who  is 
now  changing  others  in  a  remarkable  manner,  describes 
the  theory  of  F.  B.  in  the  following  way:  “There  are 
two  seas  in  Palestine,  one  in  the  north  teeming  with  life — 
fish,  fruit,  crops,  birds,  flowers,  life  of  all  kinds.  In  the 
south  is  the  Dead  Sea — no  fish,  no  fruit,  no  flowers,  no 
houses,  no  life  of  any  kind.  What  is  the  reason  for  the 
difference?  The  Sea  of  Galilee  has  a  river  flowing  into 
it,  and  a  river  flowing  out  of  it.  The  Dead  Sea  has  the 
same  river  flowing  into  it,  but  none  flowing  out.” 

It  is  a  good  figure.  Science  and  philosophy  will  not 
quarrel  with  it.  A  mind  which  receives  and  gives  is  a 
Sea  of  Galilee;  a  mind  which  receives,  but  gives  nothing 
out,  is  a  Dead  Sea.  It  is  a  law  of  our  nature  that  we 
enrich  ourselves  by  sharing  with  others  the  accumulations 
of  our  activities,  be  they  intellectual  or  material.  The 
miser  of  wealth  or  knowledge  punishes  no  man  so  heavily 
as  himself. 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


35 


The  reader  will  perceive,  then,  that  F.  B.  has  com¬ 
mon  sense  and  the  experience  of  the  human  race  on  the 
side  of  his  method.  He  tells  men  that  if  they  would  be 
happy  and  undistracted  they  must  be  zvhole-hearted .  His 
phrase  “God  Consciousness”  may  be  translated  into  “ap¬ 
prehension  of  the  truth,”  for  the  highest  of  which  a  man 
is  capable  is  truth.  His  hours  of  silence,  “listening  to 
God,”  may  be  seen  as  meditation,  when  the  mind  listens  to 
the  voice  of  that  higher  nature  which  every  normal  man 
possesses  in  himself,  and  which  is  the  driving  force  in  evo¬ 
lution.  Further,  his  teaching  that  we  must  hate  whatever 
frustrates  our  growth,  and  crave  with  our  entire  will  for 
those  things  which  increase  our  powers,  is  a  teaching 
which  needs  no  religious  sanction  for  the  reasonableness 
of  its  demands. 

Every  man,  therefore,  may  make  trial  of  this  method, 
whatever  his  religious  opinions.  Every  man  who  desires 
to  grow,  every  man  who  desires  peace  of  heart  and 
strength  of  mind,  may  test  the  truth  of  this  method  in  his 
own  life,  without  reference  to  any  religion.  But  no  man 
who  thus  genuinely  endeavours  to  test  this  teaching  will 
be  able  to  doubt  in  the  end  that  by  discovering  and  pro¬ 
claiming  this  law  of  man’s  spiritual  nature  Jesus,  ipso 
facto ,  revealed  himself  as  the  incarnation  of  universal 
truth. 

In  the  conclusion  to  this  book  I  shall  invite  the  reader 
to  ask  himself  what  light  is  shed  on  the  difficult  question 
of  man’s  immortality  by  F.  B.’s  interpretation  of  the 
Christian  thesis.  For  the  present,  it  is  wiser  to  restrict 
our  view  to  this  difficult  and  perplexing  planet,  and  to 
observe  how  a  system  of  rewards  and  punishments  oper¬ 
ates  in  the  domestic  life  of  mortal  man.  The  narratives 
which  follow  prove  quite  conclusively  that  here  upon 


36 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


earth  the  lover  of  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful 
reaps  a  harvest  of  wheat,  while  the  lover  of  the  base,  the 
false,  and  the  hideous  reaps  a  harvest,  not  only  of  tares, 
but  of  thorns. 

As  a  preface  to  these  narratives  I  will  conclude  the 
present  chapter  with  an  explanation  of  F.  B.’s  work  in 
the  universities  of  the  world. 

Two  Anglican  bishops  in  the  East,  greatly  struck  by 
the  extraordinary  effect  of  F.  B.’s  personal  revivalism 
among  missionaries,  asked  him  to  pay  a  visit  to  their 
sons  in  Cambridge.  They  were  anxious  that  these  two 
boys  should  know  F.  B.’s  idea  of  religion  on  the  threshold 
of  their  manhood.  That  visit  revealed  to  F.  B.  a  very 
distressing  state  of  things  in  the  colleges  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity.  He  called  a  few  of  his  followers  to  his  side,  and 
began  a  private  work,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  con¬ 
versational  work,  among  the  undergraduates  of  Cam¬ 
bridge. 

On  his  return  to  the  United  States  he  set  a  similar 
work  in  motion  among  the  various  American  universities. 
Then,  paying  another  visit  to  England,  he  brought  back 
with  him  some  of  the  American  undergraduates  who  had 
become  converted;  and,  returning  once  more  to  America, 
took  with  him  English  undergraduates  who  had  undergone 
a  like  experience. 

In  this  work  he  is  engaged  at  the  present  moment,  and 
he  believes  that  a  new  knowledge  of  religion  is  spread¬ 
ing  among  men  who  may  exercise  a  strong  influence  on 
English-speaking  civilisation  during  the  next  fifty  years. 
Some  of  these  men  more  or  less  share  his  theological  opin¬ 
ions  ;  some  are  opposed  to  them ;  all,  however,  are  agreed 
that  he  has  changed  their  lives,  and  regard  him  with  an 


THE  SOUL  SURGEON 


37 


affection  which  is  one  of  many  proofs  I  possess  that  his 
goodness  has  the  true  character  of  divinity — it  is  lovable- 

Therefore  to  thee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself ; 

And  at  the  end  of  thy  day 
O  faithful  shepherd !  to  come, 

Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand. 


CHAPTER  III 


GREATS 

THE  writer  of  the  following  narrative  is  a  man  twenty- 
four  years  of  age.  He  is  regarded  by  many  good 
judges  as  a  scholar  who  may  quite  possibly  make  a  valu¬ 
able  contribution  to  philosophy. 

His  narrative  was  written  during  a  busy  time  in  one 
of  the  German  universities.  It  was  chiefly  intended  as  a 
note  for  my  guidance.  Its  interest,  however,  seems  to 
me  so  considerable  that  I  have  decided  to  publish  it  with¬ 
out  interruption.  The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  the 
writer  possesses  in  a  very  eminent  manner  the  tentative 
and  balancing  mind  of  a  “Greats”  man.  It  will  be  neces¬ 
sary  to  make  a  certain  allowance  for  his  antipathetic 
attitude  towards  F.  B.  and  also  to  read  between  the  lines 
at  those  crucial  moments  in  the  narrative  where  feeling 
is  vigorously  suppressed,  and  reason,  shrinking  from  a 
statement  of  the  emotions,  escapes  from  expression  in  a 
string  of  dots.  The  reader,  I  hope,  will  be  able  to  imagine 
what  those  dots  signify  when  he  knows  that  this  man  has 
suffered  very  deeply,  that  through  all  his  sufferings  he 
has  kept  his  courage,  and  that  the  most  impressive  quality 
of  his  courage  is  its  unsparing  honesty. 

Let  me  say  that  one  of  the  reasons  which  induces  me 
to  publish  the  narrative  in  its  original  form  is  the  con¬ 
viction  that  F.  B.  will  not  be  able  to  read  so  courageous 

38 


GREATS 


39 


and  appealing  a  statement  without  seeing  that  his  influ¬ 
ence  is  wholly  independent  of  his  theology.  If  one  could 
set  the  spirit  free  from  all  man-invented  forms,  how  soon 
might  religion  arise  from  its  death-bed  to  save  the  world 
from  the  destructive  delusions  of  materialism. 

The  Narrative 

This  is  nothing  more  than  a  contribution  towards  in¬ 
vestigating  one  particular  phenomenon — the  influence  of 
F.  B.  And  as  the  most  striking  feature  of  his  work  is 
that  he  addresses  no  monster  meetings  and  writes  no 
books  himself,  personal  reminiscences  are  the  only  means 
available  to  estimate  the  aims  and  value  of  his  work. 

It  will  have  been  made  clear  already  to  the  reader  that 
F.  B.  is  at  least  a  remarkable  personality,  and  as  such 
possesses  the  gift  of  producing  violent  reactions  in  those 
with  whom  he  comes  into  contact.  There  are  few  men 
among  those  who  know  him  at  all  well  who  do  not  feel 
either  an  intense  liking  or  an  intense  dislike  for  him ;  who 
are  not  by  turns  surprised,  admiring,  disappointed,  en¬ 
thusiastic,  disgusted,  afraid,  or  scornful  of  this  appar¬ 
ently  commonplace  American.  This  is  a  very  great 
hindrance  to  a  fair  estimate  of  him.  I  must,  therefore, 
say  at  the  outset  that  I  write  this  as  far  as  possible  “in 
a  cool  hour,”  after  living  for  nearly  six  months  entirely 
out  of  the  range  of  his  influence  and  out  of  the  sound  of 
his  name. 

Perhaps  a  personality  may  be  thought  of  as  a  piece 
of  cord  tossed  from  Norn  to  Norn,  as  the  old  Germans 
imagined  it.  Life  at  least  seems  to  be  an  interplay  of 
elemental  forces,  which  come  to  the  fore  one  after  another 
in  the  time-order,  but  must  work  ever  with  a  material 
which  is  never  quite  formless. 


40 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


If  Wordsworth’s  conviction — which  is  also  mine — be 
correct,  then  not  even  the  parents  of  a  new-born  child 
have  a  perfectly  plastic  soul  before  them  to  form  as  they 
will. 

My  father  was  the  vicar  of  a  small  town  in  East 
Anglia — Cromwell’s  East  Anglia,  where  the  Protestant 
tradition  lies  still  deep  in  the  heart  of  the  people.  It 
was  a  Protestantism  with  all  the  rigidity  of  the  Scots 
Protestantism,  but  without  its  democratic  sympathies — 
a  Protestantism  of  the  'petit  bourgeois.  It  was  impressed 
upon  my  youth  that  religion  was  a  matter  of  wearing 
black  clothes,  playing  no  games,  and  reading  only  “Sun¬ 
day”  books  on  Sunday ;  of  reading  two  “portions”  of  the 
Bible  of  the  appointed  length  on  week-days ;  of  attending 
family  prayers,  which,  one  felt  instinctively,  was  princi¬ 
pally  for  the  benefit  of  the  servants,  who  sat  on  three 
chairs  in  an  exact  row  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  (it  was 
for  myself  a  severe  Physical  Exercise,  and  consisted  of 
kneeling  very  straight  up  in  front  of  a  chair  which 
I  was  not  allowed  to  touch  under  pain  of  continual  smacks 
from  my  mother.  This  was  only  relieved  by  the  ever¬ 
present  hope  that  something  would  go  wrong,  that  my 
father  would  read  the  same  prayers  twice  over  or  omit 
some  essential  part  of  the  routine,  which,  indeed,  often 
occurred,  and  was  the  signal  for  subdued  giggling  round 
the  room.) 

One  can  laugh  now  over  much  that  one  then  cried 
about;  but  family  anecdotes  are  not  here  in  place;  per¬ 
haps  Samuel  Butler’s  The  Way  of  all  Flesh  would  give 
the  best  impression  of  the  religious  environment  of  my 
boyhood.  And  this  religion  did  play  a  very  considerable 
part  in  my  life,  and  I  took  it  as  much  a  matter  of  course 
as  being  washed  and  dressed.  I  can  only  state  as  a  fact 


GREATS 


41 


that  when  I  was  first  sent  to  school  at  the  age  of  eight  I 
knew  an  immense  quantity  of  the  Bible  by  heart,  a  know¬ 
ledge  which  was  useful  in  gaining  me  all  the  Divinity 
Prizes  for  which  I  ever  competed.  I  had  no  inkling  that 
my  environment  was  in  any  way  peculiar  before  I  went 
to  school;  I  had  scarcely  any  playmate  except  my 
younger  sister,  and  later,  my  brother.  Did  I  reflect  upon 
it  at  all?  It  is  hard  to  say. 

I  will  relate  only  two  incidents,  one  told  against  me 
by  my  mother,  the  other  which  I  remember  very  keenly 
as  happening  not  later  than  my  fifth  year.  My  mother 
tells  how,  when  three  years  old,  after  much  admonition 
for  some  naughtiness  or  other  I  replied,  “Though  dark 
my  path  and  sad  my  lot,  I  will  be  still  and  murmur  not.” 
She  adds  that  she  has  no  idea  where  I  could  have  heard  the 
words.  The  other  is  the  emotional  recollection  associated 
with  a  punishment  by  a  particular  nurserymaid.  I  had 
had  read  to  me  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  I  had  a  partic¬ 
ular  affection  for  bacon  fat,  which  was  always  a  subject 
of  dispute  between  my  sister  and  me  at  breakfast.  Ergo, 
thought  I,  I  must  give  up  my  portion  of  bacon  fat  to  her 
next  day.  The  nurserymaid  was  unsympathetic,  and  my 
venture  in  unselfishness  was  treated  as  defiance  of  the 
powers  that  be.  On  the  ground  of  other  specific  recol¬ 
lections  I  can  say  certainly  that  I  was  perplexed,  first, 
how  to  square  the  treatment  of  the  servants  with  my 
knowledge  of  the  Bible — I  think  I  always  felt  a  certain 
sympathy  with  them,  as  also  in  the  power  of  these  other 
two  beings  who  were  on  such  intimate  terms  with  God  that 
they  alone  knew  what  He  would  punish  and  what  He 
would  reward — and,  second,  as  to  the  wickedness  of  men¬ 
tioning  sexual  matters.  Until  I  went  to  school  I  was  sub¬ 
ject  to  no  strong  influence  other  than  that  of  my  parents 


/ 


42 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


(whom  up  to  this  date  I  hardly  differentiated)  and  my 
uncles  and  aunts,  of  whom  later. 

My  impression  is  that  in  the  first  stage  “God”  meant 
to  me  absolutely  nothing  but  the  power  of  my  parents. 
I  think  it  would  not  otherwise  have  been  so  easy  to  obliter¬ 
ate  him  on  first  going  to  school.  I  at  once  lost  my  sense 
of  obligation  to  perform  those  prayers  and  Bible  read¬ 
ings,  and  very  soon  I  gave  up  the  performance  of  them 
too.  I  do  not  connect  the  school  chapel  services  with  the 
slightest  degree  of  religious  sentiment.  I  had  violent 
fluctuations  of  happiness  and  unhappiness,  but  did  not 
connect  them  with  religion  in  any  way.  When,  at  the 
age  of  ten,  a  serious-minded  tutor  tried  to  convert  me, 
I  laughed  him  into  giving  up  the  attempt.  All  that  was 
silly;  a  sign  of  weakness.  My  ideal  at  that  time,  I  re¬ 
member,  was  the  “wily  Odysseus” ;  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
accomplish  in  the  school  through  diplomacy  what  seemed 
through  lack  of  athletic  prowess  impossible.  To  some 
extent  I  succeeded.  I  thought:  “One  day  I  shall  be  able 
to  manage  my  father  too.” 

In  this  temper  of  cynical  Positivism  I  was  probably 
a  very  unamiable  person  when,  at  thirteen,  I  left  my  priv¬ 
ate  school  for  one  of  the  big  public  schools.  I  was  de¬ 
servedly,  if  somewhat  severely,  repressed  in  my  first  two 
years  there,  and  distaste  for  my  home  grew  with  my  un¬ 
happiness  at  school.  I  could  no  longer  play  with  my 
sister,  and  I  had  found  no  other  interests  there.  I  was 
rather  forcibly  driven  in  upon  myself.  My  antipathy 
to  my  parents  grew  and  grew  during  these  two  years,  till 
it  assumed  the  proportions  of  a  black  cloud  over  my  life, 
and  was  invested  with  the  characteristics  of  all  the  tyrants 
and  monsters  who  were  ready  to  hand  in  the  historv  les¬ 
sons,  and  particularly  in  the  Greek  history.  I  remember  a 


GREATS 


43 


letter  to  my  father  at  about  my  fourteenth  year  in  which 
I  held  ardently  in  the  spirit  of  Herodotus  or  Sophocles  on 
the  necessity  of  obeying  my  tutor  as  officer  of  the  school 
to  which  I  belonged,  and  the  necessity  of  disobeying  him 
as  mere  instrument  of  autocratic  parents.  I  attributed 
every  misfortune  which  befell  me  at  school  to  the  secret 
machinations  of  my  parents  with  the  authorities.  The 
God  of  my  childhood  had  gradually  become  my  Devil. 

At  this  stage  the  conflict  had  certainly  no  strictly 
religious  significance.  From  the  religious  point  of  view, 
perhaps,  the  only  event  of  note  was  the  growing  influence 
in  my  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  years  of  a  somewhat  older 
boy,  who  introduced  me  to  the  mysteries  of  Anglo-Catho- 
licism.  He  was  a  personality  likely  to  attract ;  diversely 
brilliant,  subtle,  humorous,  combining  with  these  intellect¬ 
ual  gifts  a  sympathy  which  later  degenerated  into  soft¬ 
ness.  His  influence  was  very  transitory,  but  I  learned 
from  him  two  things  which  were  not  so  unconnected  as 
they  appear.  First  he  really  reawoke  my  belief  in  the 
possibility  of  a  real  personal  religion,  which,  in  spite  of 
its  elaborate  appeal  to  my  intellectual  snobbishness,  was 
far  more  real  and  vital  than  anything  I  had  experienced 
before.  From  that  moment  religion  became  a  factor  in 
my  life,  curious  as  were  the  phases  that  it  underwent. 
Second,  he  taught  me  to  admire  Swinburne. 

Curiously  enough,  I  soon  after  came  up  against  real 
religion  in  the  other  camp,  through  a  visit  to  an  extremely 
pious  Protestant  lady  who  tried  to  persuade  me,  by  means 
of  the  book  of  Revelation  and  an  equation  of  the  Beast 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  that  the  world  would 
come  to  an  end  in  1915.  I  was  really  upset  by  this  point 
of  view,  and  prayed  continually  for  a  miracle  to  decide 
which  of  the  two  extremes  was  favoured  by  God.  But 


44 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


this  Protestantism  had  no  chance,  with  its  superficial  rela¬ 
tionship  to  the  religion  of  my  home.  I  stealthily  read 
Catholic  books,  and  gloried  in  the  possession  of  a  God 
in  whom  my  parents  had  no  part  nor  lot.  I  was  im¬ 
mensely  happier  now.  Under  the  spell  of  it  I  was  con¬ 
firmed. 

This  development  lasted,  if  I  remember  rightly,  about 
eighteen  months.  Together  with  concurrent  “good  for¬ 
tune”?  of  various  sorts  it  had  an  effect  on  my  life.  I 
found  in  the  Communion  Service  more  than  I  had  believed 
possible.  In  the  end  it  broke  inevitably  on  the  one  hidden 
rock  of  insincerity.  I  had  the  first  open  outburst  of  vio¬ 
lence  against  my  parents  shortly  before  my  confirmation, 
in  which  I  let  off  the  suppressed  emotions  of  years.  I 
was  repressed  after  that  more  than  ever,  and  humiliated 
before  my  greatest  friends ;  in  return  I  comforted  myself 
with  the  Imprecatory  Psalms. 

About  eighteen  months  after  my  confirmation  matters 
came  to  a  crisis  in  this  direction.  From  seventeen  till 
twenty-two  I  was  occupied  above  all  things  in  a  long  and 
bitter  struggle  against  my  parents.  .  .  .  Starting  with  a 
quarrel  about  money,  it  involved  eventually  my  sister  and 
brother,  most  of  my  relatives,  and  most  of  my  teachers. 
There  were  periods  of  superficial  calm,  but  I  think  the 
feeling  of  tension  and  the  desire  to  avoid  each  other  was 
at  no  time  absent  during  that  period,  and  the  fact  of  the 
struggle  had  a  very  great  effect  on  my  internal  develop¬ 
ment. 

I  feel  still  that  there  was  something  elemental  and 
necessary  about  the  struggle.  It  was  a  fight  for  a  bare 
minimum  of  freedom,  which  had  to  come  sooner  or  later, 
but  it  was  embittered  by  the  religious  problems  involved. 
It  was  easy  enough  to  form  the  idea  that  my  father  was 


GREATS 


45 


acting  dishonestly ;  easy  also  to  believe  that  he  was  ill- 
treating  my  sister  and  trying  to  separate  her  from  me. 
To  all  such  reproaches  my  father  had  one  method  of  reply 
— a  deluge  of  lectures,  sermons,  pamphlets,  threatening 
the  wrath  of  God  upon  anyone  who  ventured  to  question 
anything  that  their  parents  said  or  did.  This  was  accom¬ 
panied  by  more  practical  threats  through  the  medium  of 
my  house  master,  and  eventually  the  head  master.  I  got 
from  them  much  real  but  timid  sympathy,  as  I  thought  it ; 
I  got  from  another  official  of  the  school  not  only  the 
degree  of  independence  which  I  needed  to  avoid  my  home 
in  the  holidays,  and  to  avoid  having  to  ask  for  pocket 
money,  but  also  a  lasting  friendship  which  had  a  great 
effect  upon  my  life. 

But  at  first  I  had  no  such  older  friend  to  lean  upon.  I 
played  eagerly  my  father’s  own  game ;  I  countered  his 
texts  with  other  texts ;  I  felt  a  certain  Schadenfreude  in 
this  diplomatic  game  of  trying  to  put  the  other  party  in 
the  wrong.  Only  it  was  no  game  then,  but  terrible  earnest ; 
I  felt  myself  a  Crusader,  not  only  for  my  freedom, 
but  for  my  God,  for  the  protection  of  the  Oppressed 
(my  younger  brother  and  sisters),  for  Liberty  of 
Belief.  Perhaps  I  lived  again  the  history  of  my  people 
of  East  Anglia.  I  did  believe  passionately  in  a 
God  who  was  compatible  with  reason  and  liberty  of 
thought,  and  when  I  expressed  these  sentiments,  I  was 
told  that  I  must  be  kept  from  contaminating  my  family 
with  such  dangerous  ideas.  I  was  denounced  on  all 
occasions  as  an  Atheist  and  Socialist.  I  had  then 
no  notion  of  the  economic  significance  of  Socialism ;  I 
was  under  the  influence  of  Bernard  Shaw  and  William 
Morris,  but  still  more  of  Tolstoy.  As  a  prefect  and  as  a 
cadet  officer  I  tried  to  put  my  Tolstoyian  principles  into 


46 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


effect,  with  rather  mixed  success.  As  is  usual  with  youth, 
I  painted  everything  in  vivid  whites  and  blacks.  As  secre¬ 
tary  of  a  debating  club  I  undertook  a  campaign  against 
corrupt  elections.  I  refused  to  make  use  of  my  privilege 
of  “fagging”  the  smaller  boys.  I  practised  asceticisms, 
such  as  having  no  fire  in  my  room  for  a  whole  winter,  or 
sitting  up  and  meditating  all  night.  But  perhaps  that 
belongs  to  a  later  stage. 

I  said  to  myself  one  day,  “What  if  I  am  an  Atheist? 
What  if  my  father  represents,  not  a  misstatement  of 
Christianity,  but  Christianity  in  itself  and  in  its  essence? 
All  the  tyrants  and  obscurantists  since  the  world  began 
have  based  their  claims  on  Divine  Right,  on  a  Divine  Reve¬ 
lation  where  there  is  no  room  for  reason.  All  the  religious 
wars  which  have  devastated  the  earth  have  sprung  from 
this  essence  of  Christianity  as  a  Revealed  Religion.  It 
can  have  no  place  in  a  world  of  democracy  and  enlighten¬ 
ment.” 

My  hero  was  no  longer  Tolstoy ;  Shelley  and  Swinburne 
inspired  my  hopeful  moods,  and  Marcus  Aurelius  and  the 
Buddha  my  depressions.  The  last  I  owed  to  a  very  gifted 
boy  whom  I  knew  at  that  time,  for  me  one  of  the  great 
losses  of  the  war.  I  threw  myself  into  my  new  mission, 
which  was  nothing  less  than  the  destruction  of  Chris¬ 
tianity. 

I  called  myself  a  Pantheist,  and  the  sense  of  the  unseen 
remained  strong  with  me.  But  I  never  missed  an  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  diverting  an  essay  or  a  speech  into  a  polemic 
against  Christianity.  I  devoted  much  ingenuity  to  mak¬ 
ing  out  St.  Paul  to  be  a  Pantheist ;  I  spent  hours  of  argu¬ 
ment  upon  the  head  master ;  with  the  greatest  difficulty  I 
obtained  permission  to  recite  Swinburne’s  “Hymn  to 
Man”  to  the  assembled  school;  and  finally  I  deluged  my 


GREATS 


47 


father  with  blasphemies,  spoken,  written,  and  printed. 
Perhaps  this  was  the  motive  of  the  whole ;  I  think  it  does 
not  explain  everything. 

Out  of  the  many  personalities  who  left  their  mark 
upon  my  school  life,  of  whom  I  make  no  mention,  I  must 
except  the  new  head  master,  who  came  on  the  scene  during 
my  last  terms.  He  was  a  man  whom  I  admired  at  once 
for  his  intellect,  and  came  gradually  to  love  for  the 
greatness  of  soul  concealed  under  a  somewhat  capricious 
humour.  He  was  the  first  person  who  was  neither  shocked 
nor  contemptuous  over  my  anti-Christian  crusade;  he 
made  me  feel  that  he  was  personally  sorry,  and  that  I  was 
missing  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  He  infected  me 
with  his  own  enthusiasm  for  his  own  heroes,  St.  Paul,  St. 
Francis,  Amos,  Browning.  He  was  a  hero-worshipper. 
He  also  had  in  a  very  high  degree  the  sense  of  God  in 
nature  and  in  history  which  had  always  been  with  me  to 
some  extent,  only,  on  account  of  his  personal  Christianity, 
it  was  in  him  a  living,  moving  force.  He  gave  me  the 
impulse  to  worship;  he  convinced  me  that  for  a  keen  and 
candid  mind  Christianity  was  compatible  with  libert}r.  He 
is  not  understood,  perhaps  through  his  own  fault ;  he  pro¬ 
duced  a  very  unfavourable  impression  upon  F.  B.  He  did 
not  make  Christianity  practical  in  my  life,  but  he  was  a 
very  great  inspiration  for  the  coming  years. 

My  years  in  the  army,  from  the  religious  point  of 
view,  were  blank  and  meagre.  My  longed-for  financial 
independence  improved  my  relationship  with  my  parents 
for  a  few  months,  until  a  much  more  serious  cause  of 
trouble  arose.  I  conceived  that  they  were  trying  by  base¬ 
less  slanders  to  cut  me  off  from  all  my  friends  and  to 
bring  me  into  trouble  with  my  regimental  authorities.  I 
did  what  I  knew  would  most  hurt  my  mother’s  affection 


48 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


and  my  father’s  pride ;  I  refused  to  see  them  before  being 
sent  to  France. 

The  reply  was  a  storm  of  denunciatory  tracts,  which 
followed  me  everywhere  around  France  and  Germany,  let¬ 
ters  rejoicing  at  the  judgment  of  God  when  I  failed  in  an 
examination,  letters  announcing  my  father’s  determina¬ 
tion  to  prevent  me  getting  a  job  or  going  to  the  Uni¬ 
versity  until  I  proved  more  tractable  and  apologised  for 
my  conduct.  The  atmosphere  of  a  fashionable  regiment 
was  not  favourable.  I  hardened  and  embittered  my  heart, 
and  set  myself  to  win  a  materially  full  life,  if  the  stars 
in  their  courses  fought  against  me. 

In  this  spirit  I  went  to  Oxford,  almost  without  money 
or  hope  of  having  enough  to  live  upon.  And  yet  my  be¬ 
lief  in  God  was  never  quite  dead.  Three  things  kept  it 
alive — a  change  of  station  to  the  Yorkshire  moors,  my 
first  taste  of  the  hills,  with  all  that  that  means ;  a  couple 
of  months  lived  among  some  very  unfortunate  people, 
which  made  me  conscious  of  my  longing  and  of  my  ineffec¬ 
tiveness  to  help ;  and,  most  of  all,  an  act  of  absolutely 
unexpected  Christian  generosity,  which  enabled  me  to 
live  at  Oxford  and  reawoke  my  sense  of  the  undeserved 
goodness  of  God  to  me.  For  the  second  time  in  my  life 
He  saved  me  through  the  intervention  of  an  absolute 
stranger  from  a  belief  that  selfish  materialism  is  the  only 
active  force  among  mankind. 

My  University  years  were  years  of  rebuilding.  The 
systematic  study  of  philosophy  and  of  remote  history, 
into  which  I  plunged  passionately,  had  an  overwhelming 
effect.  It  took  the  edge  off  my  harsh  dogmatisms.  I  at¬ 
tacked  Christianity,  as  before,  at  every  opportunity  in 
debate  and  private  argument,  but  in  a  different  spirit.  I 
began  to  wish  it  might  be  true.  I  preached  Socialism  as 


GREATS 


49 


the  truth  of  Christianity.  I  could  not  help  being  im¬ 
pressed  by  the  college  chaplain  and  by  the  “Religion  and 
Life”  group  in  Oxford,  who  seemed  to  have  a  real  religion 
which  was  compatible  with  freedom  and  honesty  of 
thought.  But  above  all  I  was  impressed  by  two  under¬ 
graduate  friends,  temperamentally  very  different  from 
each  other  and  from  myself,  in  no  way  remarkable  in  the 
college  except  as  being  real  Christians. 

One  of  them,  M.,  was  a  man  considerably  older  than 
myself,  who,  after  a  career  in  the  Civil  Service,  had  de¬ 
cided  to  give  up  his  prospects  there  and  become  ordained 
in  the  English  Church.  He  had  no  particular  intellect, 
and  I  own  with  shame  to  having  felt  sometimes  embar¬ 
rassed  by  his  company,  but  he  had  a  great  heart.  He 
used  to  treat  me  like  a  father,  sharing  all  my  depressions 
and  irritations.  He  used  to  flatter  my  vanity  by  asking 
my  opinion  “as  a  philosopher”  upon  theological  ques¬ 
tions  ;  and  when  I  railed  against  the  Church  he  would 
answer  me  as  far  as  he  could  and  when  he  could  not,  then 
he  would  beam  all  over  and  say  softly  to  himself,  “Dear 
creature!”  I  came  to  know  gradually  of  his  influence  in 
other  quarters  of  the  college ;  he  felt  a  mission  to  “heal 
those  who  are  broken  in  heart.”  He  had  a  mystical  and 
contemplative  temperament,  which  was  quite  compatible 
with  a  taste  for  giving  riotous  dinner-parties. 

My  other  friend,  J.,  was  peculiarly  unlike  him  in 
most  respects.  A  person  of  abundant  energy,  he  used 
to  butt  about  the  world,  breaking  his  head  against  all 
the  walls  of  unreason  and  unrighteousness  he  could  find. 
He  was  absolutely  fearless,  and  participated  in  every  mad 
rag  which  undergraduate  ingenuity  could  devise.  He 
used  to  campaign  furiously  against  every  abuse  in  the  col¬ 
lege  and  in  favour  of  all  the  “depressed  classes”  of  the 


50 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


University — the  workmen  of  Ruskin  College,  the  scouts, 
the  women,  and  the  Indians.  He  had  little  theoretical  but 
much  practical  interest  in  discussion ;  he  had  a  pathetic 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  convincing  people  by  reason, 
and  used  to  spend  his  time  bringing  incompatible  people 
together  at  meals  for  their  mutual  education.  He  had 
a  great  gift  of  winning  the  confidence  of  absolute 
strangers,  such  as  Japs  and  peasant  women.  He  was 
absolutely  irrepressible  and  indepressible. 

I  had  the  privilege  of  travelling  with  him  a  good  deal 
in  the  country.  I  learned  there  what  the  keeping  in 
touch  with  God  through  prayer  meant  to  him.  I  envied 
him  his  strength  and  I  envied  his  absolute  thoughtlessness 
for  himself.  Many  were  our  discussions,  lasting  far  into 
the  night,  round  a  fire,  curled  up  in  the  arm-chairs  which 
only  Oxford  understands,  or  lying  in  a  canoe  under  the 
moonlight  and  the  willows  of  the  Hinksey  stream. 

We  would  talk  with  that  sense  of  leisure  and  delight  in 
pure  argument  for  its  own  sake  that  one  only  has  during 
one’s  first  year  at  the  University,  when  one  has  not  yet 
learned  to  shrink  before  the  great  unsolved  questions  of 
the  world.  We  were  both  reading  philosophy.  I  was 
thoroughly  under  the  spell  of  Hegel  (not  the  subjective 
nihilists  who  claim  to  be  his  followers  in  England,  but  the 
master  himself)  and  of  Plato,  whom  I  rediscovered 
through  the  great  German  idealists.  I  think  I  clung  to 
this  belief  in  the  progress  of  Reason  through  the  world, 
not  because  I  could  see  her  traces,  but  just  because  I 
could  not  see  them.  Where  others  went  easily  by  instinct, 
I  felt  I  had  to  beat  out  a  way  painfully  through  the  jungle 
of  things.  My  earth  was  so  formless  and  void  it  must 
conceal  somewhere  the  form-giving  Spirit.  Life  could  not 
be  just  this  that  I  experienced.  I  could  not  rid  myself 


GREATS 


51 


of  the  persuasion  that  St.  Paul  formulated,  but  which  is 
the  essence  of  the  teaching  of  all  the  great  philosophers 
in  Greece  and  in  Germany:  “We  know  that  all  things 
work  together  for  good.”  “The  world-history  is  the 
purpose  of  God,  which  all  in  all  is  being  fulfilled.” 

I  had  also  a  kind  of  mystical  belief  that  the  great 
saints  and  prophets  on  the  earth  had  understood  this 
purposiveness  of  the  world’s  history  and  been  satisfied.  I 
thought  with  Augustine  of  “that  moment  of  Understand¬ 
ing  which  we  longed  for,  which  were  the  fulfilment  of  that 
promise,  ‘Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord.’  ”  I  had 
a  curious  experience  about  a  year  before  meeting  F.  B. 
My  friend  M.,  mentioned  above,  tried  to  persuade  me  to 
come  over  with  him  one  day  to  the  theological  college  in 
the  country  where  he  intended  to  go  on  leaving  Oxford. 
I  said  it  would  amuse  me  to  see  this  new  sort  of  Zoo, 
where  all  the  prospective  clerics  were  gathered  together; 
I  never  missed  a  chance  of  jeering  at  M.’s  future  profes¬ 
sion.  The  impression  I  got  from  my  visit  was  not  at  all 
what  I  expected.  I  could  not  evade  the  feeling  that  these 
otherwise  commonplace  people  had  a  secret  resource 
somewhere,  a  certain  security  about  their  life  which  it 
was  a  joy  to  feel.  I  attributed  the  feeling  rather  un¬ 
successfully  to  the  beauty  of  the  place  and  the  easy  sim¬ 
plicity  of  their  life ;  I  knew  that  I  had  felt  the  breath  of 
the  Spirit  of  God.  And  I  said,  “How  is  it  that  the  Chris¬ 
tians  have  preserved  something  divine  and  living,  in  spite 
of  their  allegiance  to  a  dead  revelation  and  an  obscurant¬ 
ist  organisation — in  spite  of  their  immoral  belief  that  a 
forgiveness  of  sins  and  benefits  after  death  can  be  ob¬ 
tained  through  the  recitation  of  some  ill-understood  for¬ 
mulae — in  spite  of  their  barbarous  myth  that  God,  to 
appease  His  own  anger,  demanded  the  sacrifice  of  an 


52 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


innocent  person?”  And  I  set  to  work  furiously  on  com¬ 
parative  religion  and  mythology,  on  Frazer,  and  Reinach, 
and  Rohde,  to  prove  to  others  and  satisfy  myself  that  all 
these  Christian  dogmas  and  rituals  were  old  before  Jesus 
appeared  on  the  stage ;  that  other  religions  had  produced 
as  high  a  morality  and  as  high  a  culture ;  that  the  Chris¬ 
tians  could  not  claim  a  monopoly  of  the  Divine  Spirit, 
which  had  spoken  from  the  poets  and  prophets  and 
philosophers  of  every  age. 

One  Saturday  night  I  was  writing  an  essay  upon  the 
idea  of  the  soul,  which  I  had  been  trying  to  trace  through 
the  early  stages  of  European  culture,  when  J.  burst  into 
my  room,  very  excited.  “Hello,”  he  cried.  “I’ve  got 
a  brand  new  phenomenon  for  you.”  He  proceeded  to  tell 
me  about  F.  B. 

“But  what  does  he  do?”  I  asked. 

“Oh,  he  just  goes  around  waking  up  the  individual.” 

“Well,  I  don’t  want  to  see  him  then ;  I  don’t  want  to 
be  vaguely  enthused ;  there’s  too  much  of  that  about  the 
world  already.” 

“But  he’s  a  regular  prophet ;  he  believes  actively  in 
the  Spirit.” 

“Well,  I  don’t  believe  he  is  a  Christian  then,”  I  said; 
“the  Christians  have  long  put  the  Spirit  away  on  the 
shelf ;  they  bring  Him  out  once  a  year  on  Whit-Sunday, 
and  then  forget  about  Him  again.” 

He  looked  at  his  watch.  “Well,  this  is  Whit-Sunday,” 
he  said.  .  .  . 

Later  in  the  day  I  made  my  first  acquaintance  with 
F.  B.  “A  horrid,  bumptious  American,”  was  my  inward 
comment  when  he  came  into  my  room,  with  an  introduc¬ 
tion  from  J.  I  had  severe  toothache  at  the  time,  and  was 
having  a  nerve  slowly  killed,  and  was  feeling  very  dis- 


GREATS 


53 


agreeable.  I  asked  him  about  bis  travels.  He  told  me 
some  of  his  “yarns.”  The  general  theme  was  that  “crows 
are  black  the  whole  world  over.” 

“But  I  don’t  feel  conscious  of  any  particular  sin,” 
I  said.  “I  have  heard  this  stuff  from  my  youth,  and  it 
all  seems  so  irrelevant.  I  wish  I  were  capable  of  com¬ 
mitting  some  really  great  sin.  It’s  just  lack  of  oppor¬ 
tunity,  or,  still  more,  lack  of  imagination.  Your  inter¬ 
esting  sinners’  had  to  be  born  interesting.  I  dream  and 
criticise  and  never  get  anywhere  definite.  If  only  one 
knew  what  one  had  to  do.  .  .  .”  And  perhaps  my  atten¬ 
tion  turned  upon  my  own  inner  soreness,  and  I  forgot  that 
two  minutes  ago  I  had  been  trying  to  decide  how  to  get 
rid  of  the  man.  I  forgot  the  unpleasantness  of  his  voice; 
in  fact,  he  hardly  seemed  to  be  there;  he  seemed  to  feel 
my  dissatisfaction  with  things  too  well ;  he  was  no  longer 
a  second  focus  of  consciousness,  but  was  somehow  shar¬ 
ing  in  mine. 

“You  are  disorganised,”  he  said,  “without  a  centre — 
without  Christ.” 

Another  man  came  in  on  a  casual  errand.  It  was  like 
the  switching  on  of  the  lights  in  a  cinema.  One’s  mind 
is  not  adapted  for  working  on  two  levels  at  once.  The 
silent  figure  in  the  corner  had  somehow  set  it  going  on 
the  lowest  level ;  the  superficial  didn’t  come  easily.  My 
visitor  saw,  I  think,  my  embarrassment,  and  soon 
left. 

F.  B.  began  to  ask  me  about  my  life.  I  felt  somehow 
that  I  was  on  my  trial,  though  not  that  this  American 
was  in  any  way  concerned  in  it.  I  answered  coolly  and 
clearly. 

“Well,  I’m  pleased  to  have  met  you,  Mr. - ,”  lie  said, 

getting  up.  .  .  . 


54 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


Something  overwhelming  came  over  me.  It  was  an 
insult  to  play  with  this  man.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  “And  I  also  lie,”  I  continued  in  my  narrative. 
“That  is,  usually.  For  instance,  what  I  told  you  five  min¬ 
utes  ago  .  .  .” 

I  felt  somewhat  paralysed,  as  do  probably  all  irreso¬ 
lute  people  after  having  let  loose  the  irrevocable,  but  pro¬ 
foundly  happy. 

“God  told  me,”  he  said. 

He  told  me  about  his  listening  to  God  and  of  the  Bible 
as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  living  Spirit ;  of  the  guidance  of 
Jesus  Christ  here  and  now  in  the  everyday  decisions  of 
life.  A  riot  of  new  possibilities  began  to  break  into  the 
dimness  of  my  mental  outlook.  I  prayed  rather  definitely. 

I  walked  to  the  gate  with  him ;  I  was  feeling  elated  as 
never  before.  “I  seem  to  have  lost  control  of  myself  to¬ 
night,”  I  said ;  “how  absurd  all  this  will  seem  to-morrow !” 

“You’ve  heard  about  the  seven  devils,”  he  said.  “Get 
going  at  once.” 

I  walked  by  the  river  with  another  in  the  early  morn¬ 
ing,  and  it  was  as  when  the  morning  stars  sang  together, 
but  after  breakfast  the  whole  events  of  the  night  before 
seemed  hardly  credible.  “He  is  a  psycho-analyst,”  I  said, 
“although  I  didn’t  notice  any  of  their  tricks.  We’ll  see  if 
his  stunt  with  the  Bible  works.” 

I  hunted  out  a  Bible  and  turned  up  by  chance  the 
story  of  the  paralytic  man.  “What  does  all  the  business 
about  the  forgiveness  of  sins  mean?  Which  is  easier  to 
say  .  .  .?  ‘But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  Man 
hath  power  to  forgive  sins.’  .  .  .  What  about  my  tooth¬ 
ache  last  night !” 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  first  meeting  rather  because  of 


GREATS 


55 


its  immediate  strangeness  than  because  of  its  results. 
For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  had  deliberately  and  gladly 
made  a  fool  of  myself  before  a  perfect  stranger.  I  had 
told  him  things  I  had  never  breathed  to  another;  I  had 
told  him  of  all  my  laughable  vanities  and  dishonesties  that 
make  the  stuff  of  a  man’s  most  intimate  life.  I  put  it  all 
down  to  some  uncanny  personal  quality  of  the  man, 
some  quasi-hypnotic  influence.  (I  believe  now  that  re¬ 
ligion  has  nothing  to  fear  in  psychological  explanations 
of  the  working  of  God,  though  these  do  not  carry  one 
very  far.)  I  can  only  say  that  I  was  fairly  on  my  guard 
against  such  influences,  after  what  I  had  heard  from  J. ; 
and  I  must  emphatically  deny,  in  view  of  what  is  said  in 
some  quarters  against  F.  B.,  that  I  was  in  any  particular 
trouble  at  the  time. 

“Psychological  or  not,  is  this  experience  the  voice  of 
God?”  That  was  for  me  the  question.  I  answered,  hesi¬ 
tantly  but  decidedly,  “No !”  Any  half-savage  thau¬ 
maturge  playing  skilfully  on  the  chords  of  the  mind  could 
awaken  such  a  momentary  emotion.  And  my  prejudice 
against  Christianity  in  general,  and  against  the  religion 
of  the  Protestant  sects  in  particular,  rose  up  like  a  mist. 

I  saw  F.  B.  no  more,  but  had  an  invitation  from  him 
some  days  afterwards  to  attend  his  “house-party”  at 
Cambridge  on  August  8th.  I  was  pleased  to  have  a  really 
good  excuse  for  not  going — two  successive  invitations  in 
the  South  of  England  which  would  make  a  return  to 
Cambridge  impossible.  But  about  August  3rd  I  received 
three  letters,  two  saying  that  owing  to  unexpected  illness 
my  invitations  had  fallen  through,  one  from  F.  B.  say¬ 
ing  that  he  was  expecting  me  at  Cambridge.  I  was  very 
annoyed  with  the  presumption  of  the  man ;  I  wrote  and 
told  him  so.  But  my  curiosity  was  too  strong ;  I  went. 


56 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


I  will  confine  myself  to  the  subjective  impressions  I 
received  at  that  “house-party.”  First,  one  must  take 
into  account  the  natural  attractiveness  of  even  a  Cam¬ 
bridge  college  in  the  summer.  Second,  I  was  surprised 
by  the  personnel.  They  were  a  very  mixed  lot,  with 
perhaps  a  preponderance  of  the  “Rugger  Blue”  type  of 
undergraduate,  but  they  were  very  natural,  and  seemed 
to  have  left  the  clique  spirit  behind.  There  were  there 
three  other  Americans  apart  from  F.  B.,  and  they  mixed 
up  with  the  rest  very  creditably.  The  soul  of  the  party, 
F.  B.  himself,  was  very  unobtrusive.  He  refused  to  pre¬ 
side  at  any  of  the  meetings,  but  one  knew  without  looking 
for  him  whether  he  was  there  or  not.  One  admired  his 
seeming  carelessness  about  the  success  of  his  show.  It 
was  a  bold  idea  bringing  two  distinguished  speakers  on 
the  first  night,  but  it  broke  down  our  first  shyness.  One 
felt  already  that  the  “walls  were  shaking.” 

Only  all  that  that  phrase  implies  was  at  that  time  new 
to  me.  There  was  hardly  a  trace  of  the  hard  religious 
dogmatism  which  I  had  gone  there  to  find;  but  in  so  far 
as  there  was,  I  could  not  feel  it.  I  was  absorbed  in  a 
new  experience.  I  felt  as  if  I  was  living  upon  a  mountain- 
top  right  up  against  the  sky,  with  the  other  peaks  near 
and  naked  against  the  sun — peaks  which  it  would  take 
hours  to  reach  along  the  devious,  man-made  tracks  across 
the  valley.  And  there  was  nothing  left  but  the  claims 
of  God  and  of  the  other  man  standing  there  before  God. 
And  I  saw  that  it  was  the  sins  of  our  choosing,  the  fear 
and  shame,  with  which  we  tie  ourselves  about,  which  pre¬ 
vent  us  from  living  always  thus  simply  and  nobly.  I 
saw  also  that  it  was  all  these  things  which  debar  us  from 
a  living  faith  in  God;  that  one  can  only  trust  a  person 
from  whom  one  has  nothing  to  conceal;  that  only  this 


GREATS 


57 


faith  in  the  tireless  working  of  God  in  our  lives  could  let 
loose  our  buried  energies,  could  bring  us  to  take  risks 
with  our  wealth  and  reputation.  “Sin  blinds,  sin  binds” ; 
it  could  hardly  be  put  better  than  in  this  catchword  of 
F.  B.’s — Christianity  not  as  imprisonment,  but  as  a 
Liberation  of  the  soul ! 

This  is  all  too  vague  and  subjective,  and  yet  I  must 
emphasise  one  point.  I  do  not  remember  the  substance 
of  F.  B.’s  speeches ;  it  was  not  that  which  counted.  I 
could  and  did  in  the  group-discussion  argue  quite  coldly 
against  some  of  the  points  which  he  or  his  supporters 
seemed  to  over-emphasise.  It  was  a  particular  individual 
experience  which  I  have  had  but  few  times  in  my  life,  and 
perhaps  never  with  the  same  intensity — the  experience  I 
have  described  above  as  “standing  before  God.”  What¬ 
ever  I  may  subsequently  think  of  F.  B.  cannot  alter  my 
conviction  on  this  subject. 

I  walked  up  and  down  the  Quad  much  of  one  night, 
pleading  against  the  hardness  of  the  tasks  that  were  set 
me  to  do.  I  had  to  tackle  my  parents ;  I  had  to  tackle  a 
man  I  had  known  and  feared  at  school,  the  last  person  in 
the  world  I  would  have  chosen  to  talk  to  upon  this  sort 
of  subject;  I  had  to  put  myself  to  shame  before  certain 
members  of  the  party.  I  had,  beside  the  practical  ques¬ 
tions,  the  whole  theory  of  this  new  Weltanschauung  to 
tackle.  And  I  said,  “This  time  I  am  sure  it  is  God’s 
doing,  and  that  He  won’t  let  me  down.” 

It  was  nearly  a  year  before  I  saw  F.  B.  again,  a  year 
of  hopes  and  disappointments.  I  had  immediately  to  face 
my  home  and  family;  I  had  to  face  some  earnest  Cam¬ 
bridge  undergraduates  who  were  conducting  a  missionary 
campaign  in  my  little  town,  and  who  nearly  drove  me  into 
the  wilds  of  revolt  again.  I  have  found  it  hard  to  believe 


58 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


that  the  denunciation  of  one’s  fellow-Christians  is  not 
of  the  essence  of  Christianity ;  so  much  energy  and  en¬ 
thusiasm  are  spent  upon  it.  It  is  hard  for  us  human 
beings,  to  whom  accidents  of  personality  count  so  much, 
to  remember  that  it  is  neither  Paul  nor  Apollos  that  mat¬ 
ters,  “but  God  that  giveth  the  increase.”  I  heard  many 
months  afterwards  that  even  this  personal  clash  brought 
its  harvest.  Perhaps  it  is  only  through  such  clashes  that 
we  learn  slowly  and  painfully  to  separate  the  essence  of 
the  teaching  of  Christ  from  the  purely  individual  elements 
in  the  personality  of  the  teacher.  Personality,  the 
medium  of  all  religion,  is  by  no  means  an  unequivocal  con¬ 
ception.  It  is  a  recurrent  charge  against  F.  B.  that 
“his  disciples”  are  excessively  dependent  on  him,  take 
their  experience  from  him  at  second  hand.  In  most  re¬ 
spects,  however,  we  can  only  picture  our  relation  to 
Christ  through  the  personal  relationships  that  we  have 
experienced  ourselves.  Such  experience  should  warn  us 
not  to  expect  to  go  too  fast.  When  anyone  has  lived 
many  years  in  mutual  distrust  of  his  fellows  it  is  the 
work  of  a  few  hours, — maybe  a  single  act  of  faith,  of 
willingness  to  humiliate  himself — and  the  other  comes  out 
to  meet  him,  comes  further  than  he  had  dreamed ;  but  it 
is  the  work  of  months,  maybe  of  years,  in  spite  of  the  best 
will  in  the  world  on  both  sides,  to  wipe  away  all  the 
effects.  There  is  much  to  unlearn. 

Those  of  us  who  were  at  Cambridge,  and  had  felt  there 
something  new  come  into  our  lives,  formed  a  little  circle 
at  Oxford  with  the  object  of  keeping  that  spirit  alive  by 
maintaining  touch  with  each  other.  Perhaps  we  were 
all  somewhat  discouraged  by  the  meagreness  of  immediate 
result.  We  had  to  contend  with  the  damp  warmth  of  the 
Oxford  atmosphere,  spritual  as  well  as  physical,  which 


GREATS 


59 


is  the  enemy  of  heroic  resolutions.  I  had  to  contend  with 
the  comparatively  hard  and  monotonous  work  of  the 
last  year  before  “schools”  (the  final  examination),  and 
with  the  excuse  it  afforded  for  “minding  one’s  own  busi¬ 
ness”  unduly.  I  had  shrunk  before  the  thought  of  this 
year  before  “schools,”  with  all  my  friends  “gone  down”; 
it  was  better  than  I  could  have  imagined.  This  faith 
which  I  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  opened  both  my  eyes  and 
my  mouth.  I  began  to  learn  that  I  was  not  the  only  un¬ 
fortunate  in  the  world.  I  slowly  began  to  think  of  doing 
something  for  the  people  with  whom  I  was  brought  in 
contact,  instead  of  thinking  only  of  getting  something 
out  of  them.  By  looking  on  them  as  opportunities,  in  this 
way  I  began  gradually  to  lose  my  fear  of  strangers,  a 
fear  which  I  had  come  to  regard  as  inevitable.  But  also 
I  discovered  things  that  had  been  happening  around  me 
for  two  years  without  my  having  any  notion  of  their 
existence.  I  began  to  see  a  little  of  the  picture  that  St. 
Paul  describes  as  the  “whole  creation  travailing  in  pain,” 
and  to  feel  my  helplessness  before  this  fundamental  fact 
of  the  world.  The  many  people  whom  I  came  across  “by 
chance,”  by  following  the  indications  of  God’s  guidance, 
which  were  sometimes  unquestionable,  people  who  were  for 
one  reason  or  another  almost  losing  hope,  to  whom  I  had 
to  try  to  impart  something  of  the  faith  I  had  caught 
sight  of — this  was  sometimes  the  only  thing  in  the  world 
that  kept  up  my  own  faith.  This  may  read  like  Pragma¬ 
tism  ;  it  appeared  to  me  rather  as  the  continual  confirma¬ 
tion  of  a  belief  which  I  would  gladly  have  disbelieved.  I 
felt  myself  again  and  again  before  the  question,  “Am  I 
willing  to  make  a  fool  of  myself  for  the  sake  of  another?” 
Or,  rather,  I  felt  it  not  as  a  question,  but  as  an  order,  in 
circumstances  wThere  I  could  see  no  reason  for  it ;  on  the 


60 


MORE  TWICE-EORN  MEN 


occasions  when  I  obeyed  it,  timidly  and  half-heartedly,  I 
never  found  the  command  unnecessary. 

Also  during  this  time  I  began  to  beat  out  a  working 
theory  to  fit  my  experience.  This  came  about  probably 
through  an  old  acquaintance  but  new  friend  among  the 
undergraduates  of  my  college.  I  had  long  admired  his 
knowledge,  but  looked  down  upon  his  rather  naive  enthu¬ 
siasms.  I  had  thought  him  rather  “bourgeois” — a  snob¬ 
bish  term  for  something  that  is  peculiarly  uncongenial 
to  the  bulk  of  those  who  have  suffered  from  a  public  school 
education.  I  discovered  gradually  the  goodness  of  his 
heart.  I  do  not  mean  in  this  connection  that  I  took  over 
his  theories.  He  belonged  to  the  respectable  High  Church 
of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the  older  Tract arians ;  but 
he  believed  sincerely  and  actively  in  his  Church,  and  was 
at  all  times  ready  to  defend  it.  He  had  an  immense  and 
varied  acquaintance,  who  laughed  at  him  and  loved  him. 
In  the  course  of  discussion  with  him  my  ideas  began  to 
shape  themselves.  He  formed  one  of  a  small  group  who 
met  to  discuss  the  Philosophy  of  Religion.  Its  regular 
membership  consisted  of  a  Roman  Catholic,  a  Jew,  a 
young  Modernist  theologian,  two  mild  Agnostics,  a  very 
naive  American  Atheist,  and  a  pious,  rather  narrow  Non¬ 
conformist.  But  the  lines  were  already  laid  for  me.  On 
my  return  from  Cambridge  in  the  summer  my  father  asked 
me  to  read  and  criticise  one  of  the  books  of  essays  which 
are  the  product  of  the  very  remarkable  group  of  liberal 
Christians  in  Oxford  who  are  associated  with  the  name 
of  Canon  Streeter.  I  did  find  in  the  works  of  this  group 
a  theory  of  Christianity  which  was  compatible  with  free¬ 
dom  and  progress  of  thought,  and  with  the  demands  of 
practical  experience. 

From  the  theoretical  standpoint  I  had  always  had 


GREATS 


Cl 


two  fundamental  convictions  upon  the  nature  of  the 
world.  I  was  on  the  one  hand  attracted  by  the  newer 
Evolutionism  of  Bergson  and  his  disciples.  From  this 
source,  but  perhaps  more  from  my  anthropological  read¬ 
ing,  I  thought  of  the  world  as  an  endless  flux,  in  which  no 
beliefs,  scientific,  moral,  or  religious,  could  survive  more 
than  a  few  hundred  years.  Such  a  view  has  a  special 
attraction  for  our  generation,  the  generation  which  has 
grown  up  in  the  war  period  and  seen  “the  old  faiths  ruin 
and  rend.”  Positivism  has  never  had  such  a  slump  in 
the  intellectual  world  as  at  the  present  time.  At  the 
same  time  I  could  not  help  believing  that  this  development 
had  a  Meaning,  a  Value,  which  was  somehow  related  to 
our  values ;  I  could  not  banish  from  my  mind  the  great 
assertion  of  the  Idealistic  tradition  that  “all  we  have 
thought  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good  shall  exist  .  .  . 
when  eternity  reaffirms  the  conception  of  an  hour.”  But 
how  to  imagine  the  conjuncture  of  these  two  postulates 
of  experience,  how  to  picture  a  world  in  which  all  our 
beliefs  are  transitory  and  in  which  we  yet  can  know  that 
all  our  beliefs  are  transitory! 

The  notion  of  a  self-revealing  God,  a  God  who,  out  of 
blindly  reacting  animals,  is  creating  Personal  Souls  in 
his  own  image;  of  this  world  of  pleasure  and  sin  as  an 
Education,  in  the  sense  of  Stevenson’s  prayer;  of  the 
revelation  of  this  “mystery”  through  the  incarnation  of 
Christ,  the  “Logos” — all  this  was  new  and  wonderful  to 
me,  and  supplied  a  theoretical  want  no  less  than  a  practi¬ 
cal.  My  mind  leaped  back  to  the  later  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul,  where  he  develops  this  idea  of  “God  in  Christ  re¬ 
conciling  the  world  to  Himself,”  of  Christ  as  the  head  of 
a  body  of  creatures  grown  conscious  of  their  Creator. 
This  again  connected  itself  with  a  host  of  mystical  specu- 


t 


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MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


lations  which  are  the  common  property  of  our  age — an 
age  awaking  to  the  importance  of  the  Unconscious  and 
to  the  multiplicities  of  Personality.  I  have  found  them 
recently  set  forth  by  a  German  novelist,  Gustav  Meyrin, 
in  his  book  The  White  Dominican.  I  only  wish  to  empha¬ 
sise  the  fact  that  from  the  orthodox  Christian  point  of 
view  my  theory  was  at  that  time,  to  say  the  least  of  it, 
deficient.  The  view  of  the  Atonement  to  an  angry  God 
through  a  vicarious  sacrifice,  the  view  that  treats  the 
words  of  Christ  as  a  Law  and  God  as  a  policeman,  was 
abhorrent  to  me.  I  was  also  not  prepared  to  admit  that 
the  sin  of  individuals  could  disorder  the  plan  of  the  uni¬ 
verse.  I  felt  that  this  latter  was  in  conflict  with  all  the 
postulates  of  theoretical  activity,  just  as  the  former  doc¬ 
trines  struck  at  the  root  of  all  practical  activity.  In  re¬ 
gard  to  the  reality  of  sin,  I  would  only  go  as  far  as 
Cleanthes’  prayer:  “ O  God,  let  me  follow  out  Thy  will 
gladly ;  for  if  through  evil  desire  I  struggle  against  it 
to  my  own  sorrow,  yet  must  I  follow  it  none  the  less.”  Sin 
harms  the  individual  soul  of  the  sinner ;  it  cannot  harm 
God,  nor,  if  this  seem  paradox,  can  it  harm  other  souls. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  inherited  Calvinism  of  my  fathers  com¬ 
ing  to  the  surface.  Calvinism  can  be  a  very  unattrac¬ 
tive  doctrine,  but  the  notion  of  the  overruling  power  of 
God  to  which  it  holds  fast  is  of  the  essence  of  all  religion 


whatever.  It  was  the  overwhelming  belief  in  the  power 
of  God  here  and  now  that  inflamed  the  saints  and  prophets 
and  heroes  from  the  beginning  of  time.  Was  it  possible 
to  have  a  faith  which  could  be  progressive  and  liberal, 
and  yet  possess  the  power  to  move  mountains?  I  believed 
then  that  it  was.  Perhaps  the  existence  of  such  a  prophet 
in  a  prominent  position  in  Oxford  was  the  only  ground  I 
had  then  for  such  a  belief.  My  greatest  debt  during  this 


GREATS 


63 


time  is  owed  to  Dr.  Selbie,  although  he  was  then  unknown 
to  me  personally.  His  was  the  voice  of  one  who,  like 
Plato’s  philosopher-king,  had  climbed  to  the  heights, 
without  losing  his  bearings  when  he  returned  to  the  val¬ 
leys.  He  was  so  unlike  F.  B.  in  every  way,  and  like  him 
in  one  respect — his  religion  was  alive. 

Thus,  though  not  unconscious  of  my  theoretical  differ¬ 
ences  from  F.  B.,  it  was  this  unmistakable  living  quality 
in  his  religion  that  made  me  await  his  return  with  eager 
expectation.  Here  was  a  man  wTho  could  stir  even  Oxford. 
He  did.  How  I  am  at  a  loss  to  explain.  He  sat  for  two 
weeks  in  a  room  in  one  of  the  colleges,  and  by  the  end  of 
his  stay  the  college  was  ranged  sharply  apart  in  two 
camps — the  pro-  and  anti-F.B.’s.  He  addressed  a  meet¬ 
ing  in  the  college  soon  after  his  arrival,  at  which  an  in¬ 
fluential  section  of  the  undergraduates  came  with  a  con¬ 
certed  scheme  to  “rag”  this  impudent  American.  And 
somehow  they  felt  their  witticisms  out  of  place,  and  the 
attack  fell  rather  flat.  Perhaps  it  was  just  the  quiet 
confidence  of  the  man  that  his  enemies  could  not  help  feel¬ 
ing.  Or  one  may  repeat  a  second-hand  story  of  how  he 
led  a  petulant  committee  up  to  the  top  of  Shotover  Hill 
and  harangued  them  upon  their  sins,  with  the  effect  that 
they  one  and  all  tried  to  resign.  His  whole  stay  in  Ox¬ 
ford  was  an  incredible  tour  de  force.  Was  it  more  than 
that  ? 

That,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  can  never  be  answered 
by  a  human  observer.  I  believe  he  brought  help  and 
“Good  News”  to  many.  I  think  I  was  somewhat  disap¬ 
pointed  with  the  immediate  results  in  the  “test-cases”  I 
had  mentally  set  him.  You  cannot  write  answers  on  a 
human  personality  as  on  a  piece  of  foolscap.  And  I 
found  it  a  little  hard  to  answer  the  charge  that  much  of 


64 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


his  following  was  obtained  by  the  questionable  method 
of  making  lurid  confessions  of  sins  in  meetings.  “Can 
this  gospel  be  of  God,  if  it  be  spread  by  playing  upon 
the  fears  of  the  nervous  and  inexperienced?”  This  was 
the  question  that  many  people  whom  I  respected  put  to 
me  at  that  time.  I  had  doubts  like  the  rest,  but  I  had 
opportunities  of  knowing  him  more  intimately  than  the 
rest.  My  mockery  faded  away  into  self-reproach  at  the 
first  contact  with  his  simple  goodness.  My  natural  em¬ 
barrassment  at  being  mixed  up  with  this  crank  preacher 
at  all  was  a  spur  to  me  to  defend  him  more  vigorously.  I 
attributed  all  my  doubts  to  the  misrepresentations  of  his 
disciples. 

His  disciples?  Perhaps  therein  lay  the  false  concep¬ 
tion  that  was  the  cause  of  my  difficulties.  It  is  easy  to 
feel  the  emotion  behind  the  great  hymn  of  St.  Francis, 

ay  life :  “Let  the  Lord  God 
^ke  praised  in  all  His  creatures.” 

Is  it  possible  in  the  last  resort  to  distinguish  Chris¬ 
tianity  from  the  opinions  and  prejudices  of  all  other 
Christians  whatever,  without  one’s  own  belief  becoming 
thereby  thin  and  ineffective?  My  belief  in  Christ  began 
to  detach  itself  gradually  from  my  belief  in  F.  B.  A  few 
days’  stay  with  my  friend  in  his  theological  college  men¬ 
tioned  above  brought  to  my  consciousness  the  fact  that 
this  Christianity  had  gnawed  its  way  into  my  life.  One 
morning  in  a  wood  on  top  of  the  Chilterns  I  felt  irresisti¬ 
bly  that  Christ  was  calling  me  to  some  definite  work. 
What  it  might  be  I  had  no  idea.  I  was  afraid  before  this 
“amaranthine  weed.”  Also  I  knew  the  vagueness  and 
ineffectiveness  of  my  temperament,  to  which  F.  B.  was 
like  a  cold  bath.  With  all  this  in  mind,  I  accepted  an 
offer  of  his  to  travel  round  Europe  with  him  in  the  sum- 


difficult  to  live  it  out  m  everyd 


GREATS 


65 


mer  as  tutor  to  a  friend  of  his.  I  said  I  should  go  un¬ 
reservedly  under  his  orders,  under  a  vow  of  “holy  obedi¬ 
ence.”  It  should  be  the  discipline  that  was  the  essence  of 
“Continuance.” 

The  second  house-party  was  a  foretaste  of  the  con¬ 
tinental  pilgrimage;  indeed,  I  met  there  most  of  the  per¬ 
sonnel  of  the  “F.  B.  troupe” — as  an  observer  once  called 
it — for  the  first  time.  The  atmosphere  was  not  at  all 
like  that  of  the  Cambridge  party  of  the  year  before;  the 
element  of  the  professional  Christian  who  has  a  pet  doc¬ 
trine  to  expound  was  much  more  in  evidence.  The  first 
two  days  were  peculiarly  inharmonious ;  criticism  was  in 
the  air.  I  found  much  that  was  uncongenial  to  me  in  the 
views  and  manners  of  the  “disciples,”  but  at  the  same 
time  I  discovered  ever  new  qualities  to  admire  in  the 
“master.”  He  had  hardly  spoken  in  the  first  two  days, 
but  he  knew  what  we  were  saying,  and  was  quite  unper¬ 
turbed  by  it.  “TFaif,”  I  said  to  his  detractors,  “wait  till 
he  really  takes  things  in  hand.” 

The  end  of  the  house-party  was  the  greatest  personal 
triumph  for  F.  B.  that  could  have  been  imagined.  The 
lion  lay  down  with  the  lamb.  It  will  have  been  adequately 
described  elsewhere  in  this  book.  I  went  away,  after 
lunching  with  a  man  I  had  once  described  as  “the  most 
unsympathetic  I  could  imagine,”  with  the  voice  that  Peter 
heard  sounding  in  my  ears :  “What  God  hath  cleansed,  l 
that  call  not  thou  common.” 

The  “Continental  tour,”  which  gave  me  the  most  ade¬ 
quate  insight  into  the  personality  and  work  of  F.  B.,  is 
difficult  for  me  to  describe  in  any  detail,  because  it  in¬ 
volved  rather  intimately  the  affairs  of  others,  which  I 
do  not  feel  justified  in  bringing  into  print.  It  was  a  very 
severe  lesson  in  practical  internationalism.  The  “troupe” 


66 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


\/ 


were  all  Americans  1 — which,  however,  should  not  be  taken 
as  a  sufficient  description  of  them.  We  had  one  other 
Englishman  with  us,  a  former  acquaintance  of  mine,  who 
joined  the  party  as  it  was  leaving  England  under  some¬ 
what  peculiar  circumstances.  He  was  always  there 
under  protest,  had  considerable  powers  of  observation, 
and  used  to  turn  the  tap  of  his  rather  venomous  humour 
continuously  upon  the  Americans  and  their  friends.  I 
was  always  told  off  to  look  after  him,  and  he  was  a  great 
strain  upon  my  loyalty  to  F.  B.  I  was  in  a  sense  the 
cause  of  his  joining  the  party.  I  had  introduced  him  to 
F.  B.  because  I  believed  he  was  in  need  of  something  that 
F.  B.  could  give  him.  I  cannot  leave  D.  altogether  out  of 
the  story,  because  he  was  in  some  sense  one  side  of  myself 
— the  side  that  rebelled  against  the  particular  religious 
forms  of  the  Americans.  To  explain  what  I  mean  I  must 
introduce  an  idea  which  was  very  well  expressed  to  me  by  a 
German  friend:  “You  English,”  he  said,  “are  always  at 
the  mercy  of  your  ‘^Esthetic  Conscience.’  You  have  an 
instinctive  reaction  against  some  forms  of  behaviour  which 
seem  out  of  place,  vulgar,  theatrical.  This  ^Esthetic  Con¬ 
science  is  right  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred ;  in  the 
hundredth  case  it  will  prevent  you  from  helping  or  appre¬ 
ciating  a  man  whose  constitution  or  education  are  radi¬ 
cally  different  from  your  own.”  My  ^Esthetic  Conscience 
had  a  hard  time  of  it  with  the  Americans.  I  was  not  ac¬ 
customed  to  the  wavs  of  the  sort  of  international  hotels 
where  Americans  visiting  Europe  stay ;  to  travelling  round 
chateaux  at  the  rate  of  half-a-dozen  a  day,  counting  them 
up  as  if  they  were  scalps ;  to  the  habit  of  trying  to  buy 
any  pretty  thing  that  one  caught  sight  of  in  a  private 
house  or  garden.  My  tutorial  work  never  materialised. 

1  The  host,  I  understand,  was  a  very  original  and  hearty  Canadian, 
who  not  only  paid  the  piper  but  set  the  tune.  H.  B. 


GREATS 


67 


If  it  had  not  been  for  D. — my  departure  would  have  left 
him  in  a  peculiarly  awkward  position — I  should  have 
packed  up  and  left  the  party.  I  felt  myself  in  an  alien 
culture,  and  it  was  quite  clear  that  the  other  members  of 
the  party  felt  the  same  of  me.  I  hardly  saw  F.  B. ;  plans 
were  made  and  changed  over  my  head;  I  was  physically 
tired  with  the  perpetual  travelling,  and  felt  utterly  in 
the  dark.  For  the  sake  of  D.  I  had  to  keep  up  my  spirits 
and  the  honour  of  F.  B.  I  spoke  of  the  Diversity  of 
Manners  and  the  Identity  of  Principles.  I  was  aware 
of  the  great  complex  of  prejudices  which  I  have  called 
the  “^Esthetic  Conscience” — all  too  aware  of  it.  I  had 
lost  confidence  in  my  own  values.  I  found  myself  in  a 
state  of  utter  bewilderment  at  the  utter  relativity  of 
things.  I  said  one  day  gravely  enough  to  a  German 
friend,  who  in  a  fit  of  absence  of  mind  had  poured  sugar 
instead  of  salt  on  his  egg:  “I  see  it  is  the  custom  of  your 
country  to  eat  sugar  with  your  eggs.”  That  was  what 
I  felt  like  with  the  Americans.  A  severe  disappointment 
over  “schools”  a  couple  of  weeks  before  had  completed 
my  discouragement.  I  felt  I  was  inefficient  according 

'•ti 

to  the  American  hustling  standards,  and  the  knowledge 
made  me  more  inefficient  than  ever.  F.  B.  never  missei 

-t' 

an  opportunity  of  pointing  out  the  fact  to  me.  I  told 
him  once  that  living  with  him  involved  running  one’s  head 
up  against  a  stone  wall  whenever  one  tried  to  exercise 
any  initiative  of  one’s  own;  the  only  possible  course  was 
to  follow  orders  passively.  He  used  to  lecture  me  with 
perfect  justice  on  my  “obtuseness”;  he  did  really  increase 
my  powers  of  observation.  He  was  too  infallible;  I  won¬ 
dered  at  the  cleverness  and  the  energy  of  the  man ;  I  be¬ 
gan  to  feel  more  and  more  alienated  from  him. 

And  then  a  wonderful  day  came.  We  had  just  arrived 


68 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


in  Brussels.  The  journeys  always  made  me  feel  irritable. 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  go  at  any  price.  Things  were 
simplified  for  me.  D.  was  so  unusually  rude  to  F.  B. 
that  it  was  decided  that  he  would  have  to  leave  the  party. 
I  was  “detailed”  to  take  him  on  with  me  to  my  destina¬ 
tion  in  Germany.  I  had  a  weary  day  trying  to  make 
plans  for  D.  I  came  to  see  F.  B.  in  the  evening  to  make 
final  arrangements.  He  was  in  bed.  I  thanked  him 
formally  for  all  he  had  done  and  told  him  what  I  meant 
to  do.  .  .  .  And  he  looked  at  me  very  much  moved,  and 
said:  “Clive,  I  have  one  thing  to  say  to  you  before  you 
go.  I  have  got  to  ask  your  pardon.  I’ve  left  you  in  the 
dark  and  in  the  cold.  I’m  sorry.”  ...  I  was  over¬ 
whelmed;  this  from  my  superman?  Anything  but  this. 
And  he  began  to  pour  out  all  his  hopes  and  anxieties,  his 
plans  and  his  disappointments.  “No,  no,”  I  said,  “you 
don’t  know,  you  don’t  know  how  I  have  suspected  you 
and  slandered  you.  ...  If  I  had  only  known  .  .  .” 
My  stone  wall  had  become  suddenly  human.  Become? 
My  mind  went  racing  backwards  over  our  travels,  and  I 
saw  that  there  was  no  change  in  him,  but  an  opening  of 
my  eyes  to  a  side  of  him  that  had  got  lost  in  the  press  of 
an  American  holiday.  We  talked  long  and  came  to  the 
roots  of  things.  And  I  came  to  recognise  for  the  first 
time  the  place  of  the  human  Jesus  in  the  Christian  world- 
order. 

I  saw  F.  B.  later  that  night.  It  was  about  half-past 
twelve,  and  he  looked  very  tired.  He  was  going  to  talk 
with  a  man.  I  knew  something  about  the  business ;  it  was 
a  fight  for  an  almost  desperate  soul.  He  told  me  some¬ 
thing  about  it,  and  asked  me  to  pray  for  him.  I  saw 
from  his  face  what  it  meant  to  him.  I  think  I  understood 
for  the  first  time  something  of  what  it  meant  to  Jesus 


GREATS 


69 


when  the  three  disciples  went  to  sleep  in  the  garden.  I 
prayed  as  never  before  to  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  the  Reve¬ 
lation  of  the  loving  pity  of  God. 

I  did  not  leave  next  day.  We  parted  fittingly  one 
sunny  morning  among  the  Bavarian  hills,  our  hearts  full 
of  the  splendour  of  the  greatest  drama  in  the  world  whose 
power  glows  from  the  faces  of  the  peasant-players  and 
draws  spectators  from  every  quarter  of  the  world,  with¬ 
out  distinction  of  race  or  sect.  One  is  a  little  conscious 
of  the  mechanical  triumph  of  the  stage  Crucifixion,  but  in 
spite  of  it  there  is  something  there  that  awakes  all  the 
dramatic  instincts  in  players  and  spectators,  because  it 
appeals  to  the  most  primitive  and  vital  human  emotions 
— the  spectacle  of  a  divine  man  taking  leave  of  His 
friends  and  going  consciously  and  in  full  faith  to  His 
death. 

Since  then  I  have  had  no  occasion  to  change  my  mind 
on  this  fundamental  point.  I  believe  utterly  in  F.  B.’s 
dictum,  which  indeed  is  not  F.  B.’s — “Look  after  the 
Practice  and  the  Theory  will  look  after  itself”;  “If  any 
man  do  My  Will,  he  shall  know  of  the  Doctrine.”  But  I 
do  not  believe  that  the  two  can  be  permanently  kept  in 
water-tight  compartments.  I  have  had  some  interesting 
experience  since  then  which  has  increased  my  distrust  of 
religious  short  cuts.  I  do  not  regard  as  short  cuts  the 
essentials  of  F.  B.’s  practice — the  practice  of  scrupulous 
self-discipline  as  a  means  of  keeping  in  touch  with  God 
and  getting  into  touch  with  men ;  I  regard  them  as  neces¬ 
sary  preliminaries  for  finding  the  way  at  all.  But  I  be¬ 
lieve  fundamentally  that  the  world  is  a  process  of  being 
saved,  of  coming  gradually  through  hard  work  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  Truth,  the  “Truth  which  shall  make  you 
free.”  I  do  not  believe  in  the  mechanical  repetition  of 


70 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


pious  formulae  about  the  Atonement  or  anything  else. 
That  belief  may  come.  My  future  is  uncertain  enough. 
And  I  do  not  believe  in  any  religion  which  shuts  the  doors 
of  Development. 

And  F.  B.P  He  is  one  of  the  greatest  forces  of  good 
in  the  world  at  the  present  time.  He  is  perhaps  the  most 
“real  live”  Christian  that  I  have  ever  met.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  IV 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 

SHORT,  thick-set,  with  a  disproportionate  breadth  of 
shoulder,  you  would  never  think  that  this  young 
Irishman  had  a  turn  of  speed  which  made  him  famous  at 
football.  Nor  on  a  first  acquaintance  would  you  be  at 
all  likely  to  think  of  him  as  one  who  took  religion  seriously. 

A  lively  mouse-like  brown  eye  lights  up  a  broad  good- 
natured  face,  while  a  smile  as  wide  as  lips  can  make  it 
adds  constantly  a  touch  of  whimsical  mental  quickness  to 
the  mere  structural  good-nature.  He  is  one  who  loves 
lounging  in  a  chair,  who  wears  prodigious  woollen  waist¬ 
coats  in  winter,  who  gets  his  coat  into  rare  disorder  when¬ 
ever  he  puts  his  hands  in  his  trouser  pockets,  who  listens 
lazily,  who  walks  slowly,  who  speaks  with  an  effort,  but 
who  laughs  instantly,  and  with  a  lighting  up  of  the  whole 
face,  at  a  good  retort  or  a  neat  witticism,  making  you 
feel  that  he  is  always  on  the  look-out,  gratefully,  for  occa¬ 
sions  of  laughter. 

I  had  met  him  before  the  house-party  came  together, 
and  I  saw  him  after  the  guests  of  that  party  had  gone 
their  several  ways  to  nearly  every  quarter  of  the  world. 
It  was,  therefore,  quite  easy  for  him  to  tell  me  his 
story  and  to  answer  my  questions. 

He  said  that  his  father,  who  is  a  fine,  handsome  Irish¬ 
man,  belongs  to  those  who  have  a  Church  and  State  re- 

71 


72 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


ligion.  It  would  be  impossible  for  these  people,  he  said, 
to  imagine  a  Church  without  a  State.  Their  religion  is 
part  of  their  politics,  part  of  their  class  feelings.  “My 
father,”  he  related,  “never  spoke  to  me  with  the  least 
intimacy  about  religion.  His  exhortations  consisted  of 
a  friendly  smack  on  the  back,  accompanied  by  the  ad¬ 
monition,  ‘Keep  straight,  old  man,’  as  if  that  could  do 
any  good  to  a  fellow  up  against  it.  All  the  same,  he 
was  extremely  kind,  and  a  good  sportsman.  We  liked 
him  well  enough.” 

His  mother  presents  a  more  difficult  problem  for  his 
autobiography.  What  can  he  say  of  her?  To  begin 
with,  she  was  a  wonderful,  an  altogether  adorable  person 
— loving  beauty,  loving  fine  poetry,  devoted  to  animals 
and  birds,  making  God  perfectly  real  to  her  children,  so 
that  none  ever  doubted  His  existence  for  a  moment ;  mys¬ 
tical,  too,  speaking  to  her  children  of  “the  Presence  of 
Christ  in  the  midst  of  the  world,”  teaching  them  so  con¬ 
vincingly  about  that  exquisite  moral  life  that  they  came 
to  think  of  religion  as  “helping  others” ;  yet,  somehow 
or  other,  leaving  this  son,  who  adored  her,  who  was  de¬ 
voted  to  her,  very  completely  in  the  dark  about  vital 
matters,  leaving  him,  as  he  says,  to  find  out  things  for 
himself,  and  to  suffer  a  good  deal  of  avoidable  pain  in 
the  process. 

“When  she  spoke  about  the  Presence  of  Christ,” 
he  told  me,  “I  hadn’t  the  ghost  of  an  idea  what  she 
meant.  I  just  felt  it  was  something  beautiful,  like  the 
sound  of  wonderful  words  in  the  poetry  she  read  to  me. 
She  certainly  did  succeed  in  making  the  idea  of  God 
real  to  all  of  us.  But  it  was  the  idea  of  a  God  rather  a 
long  way  off,  and  rather  overwhelmingly  too  almighty 
for  our  affection.  I  used  to  think  of  Him  as  One  to 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 


73 


whom  I  owed  obedience,  and  who  knew  what  I  was  doing, 
and  who  could  be  hurt  or  displeased  when  I  wasn’t  do¬ 
ing  my  best.  Still,  it  was  a  good,  useful  idea ;  and  it  was 
mixed  up  in  some  way  with  the  beauty  of  the  earth, 
which  we  all  greatly  appreciated,  and  the  wonders  of 
nature,  which  filled  us  with  a  good  deal  of  curious  ad¬ 
miration.  In  this  way  one  had  some  sort  of  standard 
in  one’s  mind,  something  at  least  to  look  up  to.” 

When  his  moral  struggles  began,  they  found  him 
wholly  ignorant  of  their  origin  and  significance.  He 
was  a  little  boy  at  school,  pugilistic  and  keen  on  games, 
cheerful  and  larky,  always  ready  for  springing  a  joke. 
This  strange  black  cloud  slowly  gathering  over  his  mind, 
darkening  the  outer  world,  giving  him  a  haunted  feeling 
inside,  troubling  his  brain  and  making  his  heart  feel  like 
a  bruise — whence  did  it  come,  what  was  its  meaning? 

All  he  knew,  by  instinct — surely  a  strange  instinct 
worth  thinking  about — was  that  this  urge  of  his  being 
in  a  particular  direction  had  to  be  resisted.  It  was 
something  against  him.  It  was  something  of  which  the 
mere  disposition  made  him  ashamed.  He  felt  as  if  he 
had  been  caught  doing  something  underhand.  “But  the 
fight  was  the  very  devil,  and  at  times  I  was  more  than 
disheartened — I  was  pretty  sick  of  myself.” 

This  struggle  occurred  at  Rugby.  It  lessened  as  he 
moved  up  in  the  school.  His  last  year  wTas  passed  in 
a  cleaner  atmosphere.  He  never  heard  one  whispered 
nastiness,  never  listened  to  tale  or  rhyme  which  could  dis¬ 
tress  him.  He  was  then  nearly  nineteen  years  of  age, 
working  hard  for  Cambridge.  But  the  war,  which  was 
dragging  on  into  its  fourth  year,  did  not  come  to  an  end, 
and  away  he  went  to  be  a  soldier.  His  nineteenth  birth¬ 
day  was  spent  in  khaki. 


74 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


He  described  this  experience  of  the  Army  as  “a  pretty 
good  shock.”  It  taught  him  for  the  first  time,  he  told 
me,  “what  the  world  was  like.”  He  added  with  a  smile, 
“Nothing  has  ever  surprised  me  since  that  time.” 

The  horror  was  so  great  as  to  be  grotesque — as  to 
be  comical,  laughable.  It  was  like  seeing  oneself  for 
the  first  time  in  a  distorting  mirror.  He  cannot  help 
smiling  as  he  speaks  of  the  upside-downness  of  that 
moral  experience.  He  found  himself  among  men  who 
were  frankly,  freely,  unfeignedly  bad;  who  did  beastly 
things  with  their  whole  will ;  who  used  the  foulest  lan¬ 
guage  imaginable  because  they  really  relished  words 
with  that  particular  sound;  who  never  tired  of  crude 
stories  and  dirty  limericks ;  who  were  by  nature,  inclina¬ 
tion,  and  election  coarser  and  more  filthy  than  any 
animal  of  the  field ;  who  were  by  nature,  inclination,  and 
election  contemptuous  of  all  refinement,  all  beauty,  and 
all  virtue — men  whose  idea  of  “a  good  time”  was  every¬ 
thing  bad,  men  whose  idea  of  “a  bad  time”  was  every¬ 
thing  good. 

To  the  Rugby  schoolboy  this  atmosphere  was  suffi¬ 
ciently  repulsive  to  save  him  from  contamination ;  but 
his  natural  friendliness  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men,  his  disposition  to  take  life  as  he  finds  it  and  never 
to  set  himself  in  any  way  above  his  fellows,  might  have 
had  ill  consequences  for  his  moral  peace  had  he  not 
found  in  the  Army  two  men  as  clean-minded  and  right- 
hearted  as  himself.  “Religion  saw  me  out,”  he  said; 
“but,  all  the  same,  one  couldn’t  go  through  that  experi¬ 
ence  without  a  change.  It  made  a  difference  to  me.” 

Released  from  the  Army,  he  went  up  to  Cambridge. 
The  atmosphere  of  the  University  at  this  time  of  stir 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 


75 


and  transition,  he  found,  resembled  that  of  the  Army. 
Undergraduates  were  soldiers,  not  schoolboys.  But  there 
was  a  vital  difference ;  men  discussed  other  things  be¬ 
sides  vice.  In  his  own  set,  he  told  me,  “fellows  were  try¬ 
ing  to  find  a  way  out.”  There  were  discussions  on  the  sub¬ 
ject.  Some  were  for  cold  baths,  others  for  physical  exer¬ 
cises,  and  a  few  were  advocates  of  developing  will-power. 

“So  far  as  my  own  set  was  concerned,”  he  related, 
“public  opinion  was  healthy.  Men  who  went  up  to  town 
for  adventures  were  regarded  as  contemptible.  The 
long-haired,  aesthetic  type  went  in  for  vice,  but  the 
athletic  type  didn’t.  In  the  Army,  vice  of  almost  every 
kind  was  considered  natural.  At  the  Varsity  there  was 
a  vicious  type,  and  that  sort  of  person  was  looked  upon 
as  a  degenerate.  The  feeling  among  my  set  in  Cam¬ 
bridge  was  something  like  this:  We  know  this  is  wrong; 
how  are  we  to  get  out  of  it?  When  we  succumbed  to 
temptation  we  were  sick  with  ourselves.  But  we  had 
sufficient  courage  to  talk  the  thing  over  afterwards. 
We  didn’t  bottle  it  up,  and  pretend  we  kept  straight  all 
the  time.  The  thing  was  too  unpleasant  for  that.  We 
all  wanted  to  be  right,  and  therefore  we  sometimes  dis¬ 
cussed  over  our  pipes  how  we  were  to  dissipate  the  in¬ 
clination  which  clamoured  so  terrifically  for  expression. 
It  was  with  us  rather  like  a  discussion  about  getting  fit 
for  a  race  or  a  football  match.  We  always  looked  at 
it  from  the  point  of  view  of  physical  fitness.  Self- 
respect  came  into  the  matter,  although  we  did  not  dis¬ 
cuss  that  point  of  view;  I  suppose  it  was  taken  for 
granted ;  what  came  chiefly  into  the  open  of  our  talks 
was  the  confounded  interruption  which  this  thing  intro¬ 
duced  into  our  lives.  It  was  a  nuisance,  like  often  catch¬ 
ing  cold,  and  a  particularly  beastly  nuisance.” 


76 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


What  strikes  him  in  looking  back  to  those  days  is 
the  strange  fact  that  there  was  no  one  to  help  them. 
Cambridge  is  full  of  churches  and  clergy,  but  no  aid 
came  from  that  quarter.  The  University  shepherds  al¬ 
together  ignored  this  suffering  of  their  flocks.  No  doc¬ 
tor  ever  lectured  on  the  subject,  no  moralist  offered  a 
word  of  advice.  The  young  men  were  left  to  fight  the 
matter  out  among  themselves,  chiefly  in  secret. 

He  does  not  mean  to  suggest  that  particular  notice 
should  be  paid  to  this  driving  temptation  of  youth;  he 
is  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  desire  a  concentrated 
attention  on  such  a  matter,  for  that  might  easily  become 
unhealthy.  But  he  thinks  the  family  doctor  should  pro¬ 
vide  the  schoolboy  with  an  explanation  of  this  physical 
disturbance,  warning  him  of  the  consequences  of  yield¬ 
ing  to  its  urge  and  giving  him  a  few  notions  about  clean¬ 
liness,  physical  exercise,  and  sleep.  In  particular,  he  is 
now  persuaded  that  if  religion  did  its  normal  work, 
youth  would  have  absolute  power  over  all  temptations 
that  assaulted  and  hurt  the  soul,  and  this  without  any 
direct  mention  of  sexual  appetite. 

While  he  was  at  the  top  of  his  form  as  a  Rugby  foot¬ 
ball  player,  as  popular  a  man  as  ever  played  for  his  Uni¬ 
versity,  he  was  overtaken  by  a  serious  illness  which 
brought  him  to  death’s  door.  It  was  impossible  for  him 
to  face  an  English  winter.  He  went  first  to  the  South 
of  France  and  often  into  Italy,  reading  philosophy  for 
his  degree,  and  sadly  lamenting  his  loss  of  the  Rugger 
captaincy — a  bereavement  for  which  philosophy  pro¬ 
vided  no  consolation.  In  this  period  of  lassitude,  weak¬ 
ness,  and  disappointment,  the  old  enemy  awoke  and 
tortured  him  worse  than  before. 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 


77 


He  returned  to  Cambridge  in  order  to  take  his  degree, 
and,  still  fighting  his  moral  battle,  felt  nevertheless  that 
he  was  fighting  a  lost  cause.  The  attacks  were  more 
frequent,  the  victories  fewer.  “I  don’t  think,”  he  says, 
“that  I  ever  actually  despaired;  but  I  certainly  had  the 
distinct  feeling  that  I  was  going  downhill — morally, 
physically,  everything.  When  a  fellow  gets  to  the  point 
of  feeling  that  it’s  not  much  good  fighting  he’s  in  a 
pretty  bad  way.  When  he  feels  that  he  is  going  down¬ 
hill,  and  that  nothing  can  stop  him,  he’s  as  good  as  done 
for.  My  state  was  something  like  that.” 

One  day,  in  this  pitiful  condition  of  mind,  he  went 
to  call  on  a  Rugger  friend  in  another  college,  and 
there,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  came  upon  F.  B.,  who 
made  an  immediate  impression  upon  him — the  impres¬ 
sion  of  “a  good  fellow  who  knew  how  to  put  up  a  fight.” 
They  did  not  speak  of  religion  or  of  ethics,  but  the  con¬ 
versation  was  of  such  a  nature  as  made  our  young  Irish¬ 
man  feel  certain  that  F.  B.  could  help  him.  When  he 
got  up  to  go  he  walked  over  to  F.  B.’s  chair  and  said 
to  him,  “Look  here,  I’m  going  to  look  you  up  one  day.” 
“Do,”  said  F.  B.,  and  they  parted. 

This  is  how  the  Rugger  Blue  tells  the  rest  of  the 
story.  “F.  B.  never  pursued  me.  But  I  couldn’t  shake 
the  thought  of  him  out  of  my  mind.  I  got  no  line  from 
him,  never  heard  a  word  about  him,  never  met  him.  Yet, 
from  that  moment  of  our  first  meeting,  he  was  hardly 
ever  out  of  my  thoughts.  I’ve  talked  to  other  fellows 
since  about  their  first  impressions  of  F.  B.,  and  I  find 
that  he  took  many  of  them  as  he  took  me.  It  was  a 
strange  strong  feeling  that  he  really  knew  about  one, 
and  could  help  one;  that  he  had  the  right  medicine,  and 
could  effect  a  real  cure. 


78 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


“At  last,  sure  that  this  feeling  was  true,  and  abso¬ 
lutely  wretched  about  myself,  I  got  hold  of  F.  B.’s  ad¬ 
dress  and  went  off  to  see  him.  He  was  out.  I  wanted  to 
see  him  so  badly  that  I  sat  down  at  the  table  in  his  room 
and  began  writing  him  a  letter.  All  of  a  sudden  he 
bounced  into  the  room,  breathlessly.  ‘I  knew  there  was 
someone  needing  me,’  he  said.  It  turned  out  that  he  was 
on  his  way  to  see  somebody  else  when  he  felt  himself 
stopped  dead  in  the  street  and  ordered  to  go  to  his 
room.  The  other  appointment  was  important,  so  he  had 
run  all  the  way  back. 

“I  stayed  ten  minutes.  We  never  got  near  what  I 
wanted  to  say;  there  was  a  feeling  of  haste  in  that  meet¬ 
ing;  but  I  made  it  plain  that  I  wanted  to  have  a  talk 
with  him  on  a  private  matter,  and  he  promised  to  come 
to  my  rooms  in  Trinity  on  the  approaching  Sunday 
evening. 

“That  evening  was  the  turning-point  in  my  life.  F. 
B.  arrived  between  eight  and  nine.  There  was  a  most 
beautiful  sunset;  the  room  was  filled  with  its  soft  light. 
He  sat  with  his  back  to  the  open  window.  I  was  facing 
him,  looking  over  the  dark  outline  of  his  head  to  John’s 
Church,  with  its  cross  shining  against  the  glow  of  the 
setting  sun.  It  was  an  extraordinarily  still  evening. 
F.  B.  seemed  to  me  a  part  of  its  stillness.  He  wasn’t  in 
one  of  his  cheerful  moods.  He  hardly  said  a  word,  and 
what  he  did  say  was  said  in  a  very  subdued  tone  of 
voice.  I  sat  looking  at  the  cross  against  the  sky,  won¬ 
dering  how  the  devil  I  was  to  tell  this  man,  whom  I 
scarcely  knew,  things  about  myself  which  sickened  me, 
disgraced  me  in  my  own  eyes.  Somehow  or  another,  I 
can’t  tell  how  it  was,  the  sight  of  the  cross  in  the  sun¬ 
set,  so  high  up  in  that  wonderful  air  and  yet  not  in  the 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 


79 


least  distant  from  my  own  darkness,  gave  me  a  kind 
of  headlong  courage.  Before  I  quite  knew  what  I  was 
doing  I  said  to  him,  ‘Well,  I  may  as  well  tell  you  all 
about  it.’  He  said,  ‘Go  on,’  and  waited  for  me  to  con¬ 
tinue.  I  knew  then,  absolutely,  and  with  a  regular  blaze 
of  certainty,  that  he  could  clean  me  out.  I  told  him  the 
whole  trouble,  everything. 

“I  had  discussed  this  thing  often  enough,  but  I  had 
never  before  confessed  it.  With  other  fellows  I  had 
spoken  of  myself  as  a  physical  problem,  going  over 
symptoms,  leaving  them  to  infer  the  actual  tumbles ;  but 
here,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  had  torn  up  my  moral 
life  by  the  roots  and  held  it  out  to  another  man.  The 
feeling  of  this  was  not,  as  I  should  have  thought,  one  of 
shame  and  disgrace,  the  bitterest  humiliation  a  decent 
fellow  can  experience;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  one  of 
tremendous  relief.  That  in  itself  surprised  me.  I  had 
the  distinct  sensation  that  one  gets  in  dropping  a  heavy 
load  from  the  shoulders — a  feeling  of  expansion  and 
lightness.  I  remember,  too,  that  I  felt  as  if  something 
which  I  had  kept  bottled  up  inside  me  ever  since  I  could 
remember  anything  was  gone,  clean  gone.  You  see,  I 
had  been  feeling  fairly  desperate,  and  that  made  me, 
once  I  got  started,  careless  of  what  I  said;  I  didn’t  mind 
what  I  told  him ;  everything  came  out,  everything  I 
loathed  and  hated  in  myself,  and  in  coming  out  it  seemed 
to  stay  out. 

“E.  B.  never  spoke  a  word.  I  couldn’t  see  his  face 
against  the  light,  and  I  couldn’t  tell  how  he  was  taking 
it,  and  I  don’t  think  I  very  much  cared.  I  wound  up  in 
a  natural  way  by  telling  him  that  I’d  tried  athletics, 
that  I’d  gone  in  for  all  sorts  of  exercises,  cold  baths, 
and  tricks  for  strengthening  the  will,  but  in  vain.  I  was 


80 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


going  downhill  in  my  thought  life;  what  was  I  to  do? 
Did  he  know  a  cure?  Would  he  advise  me? 

“Then  F.  B.  told  me  everything.” 

Three  particulars  in  that  “everything”  seemed  to 
have  brought  instant  illumination  to  the  mind  of  this 
undergraduate.  First,  that  moral  chaos  is  inevitable 
when  there  is  no  singleness  of  mind ;  second,  that  the 
power  which  purifies,  strengthens,  and  upholds  can  only 
become  real  to  those  who  long  for  it,  and  open  the  doors 
of  their  cleansed  hearts  to  receive  it  in  silence ;  and  third, 
that  no  soul,  truly  conscious  of  that  power,  can  be  satis¬ 
fied  with  its  own  salvation.  “If  you  sit  still,”  he  said, 
“it’s  hopeless ;  help  other  men.” 

That  was  the  supreme  test.  A  man  could  easily  prove 
for  himself  whether  he  had  genuine  singleness  of  mind, 
genuine  contact  with  the  divine  power.  All  he  had  to  do 
was  to  consider  his  attitude  towards  other  men.  Did  he 
want  to  help  others  ?  Had  he  something  in  himself  which 
could  help  them?  It  was  no  use  pretending  in  this  mat¬ 
ter.  No  help  could  come  to  a  soul  that  didn’t  really 
want  it.  No  purity  could  come  to  a  heart  that  prayed 
for  it,  “but  not  yet.”  No  power  could  come  into  a  life 
that  was  selfish. 

“Sin  blinds,  and  sin  binds.”  Be  careful.  Think  those 
two  words  over — blinds  and  binds .  Don’t  be  quite  sure 
that  what  you  think  you  see  is  the  truth.  Don’t  be  quite 
sure  that  you  can  really  do  what  you  like.  Cross- 
examine  yourself.  You  may  be  blind.  You  may  be  a 
slave.  While  sin  is  in  your  mind  you  are  not  a  free 
creature,  you  are  not  a  seeing  creature.  Sin  is  self ; 
while  it  is  there  in  the  mind,  whatever  form  it  takes,  a 
man  may  deceive  himself  to  his  life’s  end,  may  even  go 
so  far  as  to  believe  that  he  is  good,  that  he  is  serving 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 


81 


God,  that  he  is  helping  other  men.  But  he  isn’t.  Sin 
walls  God  out.  “Then  will  I  profess  unto  them,  I  never 
knew  you.”  An  awful  sincerity,  a  sincerity  that 
searches  every  crack  and  corner  of  the  human  heart,  is 
necessary  if  God  is  to  enter — the  living  and  the  Eternal 
Righteousness. 

Many  believe  that  when  they  pray  for  purity  they 
really  and  truly  want  to  be  pure.  They  deceive  them¬ 
selves.  It  is  a  mere  passing  emotion.  The  root  of  the 
sin  is  still  in  their  hearts.  Two  things  must  go  together 
— a  deep  and  passionate  hatred  of  sin,  a  deep  and  pas¬ 
sionate  craving  for  God. 

Ask — with  singleness  of  mind — and  it  shall  be  given 
you ;  seek — with  singleness  of  desire — and  ye  shall  find ; 
knock — with  singleness  of  purpose — and  it  shall  be 
opened  unto  you.  A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil 
fruit,  neither  can  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit. 

The  reasonableness,  the  inexorable  justice  of  this 
teaching,  brought  instant  illumination  to  the  soul  of  the 
young  Irishman,  and  he  took  that  plunge  away  from 
self  which  baptises  the  spirit  of  a  man  in  the  living 
waters  of  eternal  life.  He  really  wanted  the  touch  that 
makes  personality  a  whole. 

He  said  to  me  that  so  wonderful  was  his  belief  that 
he  set  about  “tackling  other  men”  almost  at  once.  He 
told  those  men  what  F.  B.  had  told  him,  and  recom¬ 
mended  them  to  try  what  he  himself  was  trying,  F.  B.’s 
method  of  rising  early  in  the  morning  to  be  alone  and 
silent  with  the  thought  of  God  in  the  soul.  He  told  them 
that  in  these  times  of  silence  he  had  learned  to  relax  his 
whole  body,  and  that  with  so  simple  an  invitation  as, 
“God,  come  into  my  soul,  and  help  me,”  evil  thoughts 


82 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


drained  clean  out  of  him,  and  he  really  did  become  vitally 
conscious  of  invisible  power. 

All  this  he  did  in  so  masculine  and  sincere  a  fashion 
that  a  group  soon  formed  in  his  room  of  men  who  really 
longed  for  spiritual  life — a  life  which  they  could  not  find 
in  the  formal  ritual,  however  beautiful,  of  churches  and 
chapels.  F.  B.,  who  realised  the  remarkable  power  of 
this  man  to  influence  others,  soon  afterwards  sent  him 
over  to  Oxford,  where  his  twin  brother  was  at  Balliol, 
in  order  to  begin  there  a  similar  work  of  personal 
religion. 

The  Balliol  brother  invited  a  few  men  to  his  room 
and  the  Cambridge  brother  talked  to  them.  One  of  these 
men  came  from  Christ  Church;  he  was  impressed,  and 
suggested  a  somewhat  bigger  gathering  at  the  House. 

“It  was  there,”  says  the  Rugger  Blue,  smiling,  “that  I 
made  my  first  speech.  It  was  pretty  rotten.  The  room 
was  full  of  scholars,  and  I  felt  as  nervous  as  a  cat.  But 
after  I  had  got  through  they  took  the  matter  up  in 
discussion,  and  we  debated  it  from  pretty  nearly  every 
angle  till  the  small  hours.  What  struck  them  most,  I 
think,  was  the  reasonableness  of  F.  B.’s  idea  that  the 
measure  of  help  is  the  measure  of  desire.  They  never 
flinched  or  jibbed  at  this  idea  because  it  is  just.  Theo¬ 
logical  difficulties  were  hardly  mentioned ;  the  centre  of 
discussion  was  how  to  get  the  heart  honest  in  its  desire 
for  the  right  thing.  We  talked  and  talked  till  the  moon 
was  high  in  the  sky.  Then  we  went  out  into  the  Quad, 
and  walked  round  and  round  the  fountain,  still  talking. 
I  had  a  fellow  on  each  arm.  Sharing  a  trouble  makes 
friends.  The  feeling  that  you  can  help  another  fellow 
is  one  of  the  best  in  the  world.  We  were  tremendously 
happy.  They  came  to  see  me  in  my  rooms.  We  made 


A  RUGGER  BLUE 


83 


a  compact  which  still  holds  good.  Wonderful  things 
have  come  of  that  visit.” 

Later  on,  during  the  Long  Vacation,  the  Rugger  Blue 
arranged  a  house-party  in  Cambridge,  so  that  a  number 
of  men  should  meet  F.  B.  and  discuss  the  whole  question 
of  personal  religion. 

He  gave  me  a  characteristic  account  of  that  gather¬ 
ing.  “I  don’t  suppose  I’ve  got  much  of  a  reputation  for 
tact,”  he  said,  smiling  broadly;  “in  any  case,  I  never 
stopped  to  think  how  the  people  I  asked  would  mix. 
The  thing  was  to  get  a  lot  of  interesting  fellows  together, 
and  leave  F.  B.  to  do  the  rest.  The  consequence  was  we 
had  a  party  of  thirty  men — Indians,  Yanks,  Japanese, 
Chinese,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  business  men,  Members  of 
Parliament,  and  one  or  two  howling  swells  from  the 
War  Office.  It  was  most  amusing.  You  saw  Etonians 
in  white  spats  talking  to  prospective  socialistic  curates ! 
And  there  was  extraordinary  cordiality.  Everyone  was 
interested.  It  seemed  as  if  they  had  all  been  life-friends. 
I  never  knew  such  a  lack  of  strain  in  any  gathering  of 
men.  We  kept  it  up  for  several  days.  We  got  right 
down  to  bedrock — the  need  for  absolute  uncompromis¬ 
ing,  all-out  sincerity.  And  I’m  perfectly  certain  of  this, 
that  every  man  there  was  helped.  Out  of  that  party 
grew  the  party  you  came  to ;  and  we’ve  got  another  com¬ 
ing  on  in  a  month’s  time  at  Cambridge;  and  after  that 
some  of  us  are  going  to  Universities  in  Germany,  and 
some  to  Universities  in  the  United  States.” 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  at  Talbot  House,  in 
York  Road,  Lambeth,  happy  in  the  midst  of  very  lively 
youth.  He  has  decided  to  be  a  doctor,  and  when  he  has 


84 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


taken  his  medical  degree  he  is  going  to  attach  himself 
to  the  Talbot  House  Movement,  placing  himself  and  his 
services  entirely  at  the  disposal  of  that  very  noble  fel¬ 
low,  P.  B.  Clayton,  M.C.,  the  adored  chaplain  of 
Poperinghe,  to  do  what  he  can  to  help  young  men  through 
every  illness  of  soul  and  body. 


CHAPTER  V 
PERSONA  GRATA 

WHEN  the  house-party  gathered  together  he  was 
crossing  the  Atlantic,  but  long  before  he  arrived 
the  English  garden  in  which  we  walked  and  debated  grew 
well  used  to  the  sound  of  his  name.  I  was  assured  that 
he  was  “an  absolute  topper.”  I  was  told  that  everybody 
loved  him.  Again  and  again  he  figured  as  the  hero  of  a 
tale  or  the  author  of  a  good  saying.  The  mention  of  his 
name  always  brought  affectionate  smiles  to  the  faces  of 
those  who  knew  him. 

Thus  dangerously  heralded,  P.  G.,  as  I  shall  call  him 
for  brevity’s  sake  and  anonymity’s  sake,  joined  our 
party  on  the  day  before  it  broke  up.  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  hearing  him  make  one  very  simple  and  modest  speech, 
and  the  greater  pleasure  of  taking  a  moonlight  walk 
with  him  under  the  tall  trees  of  that  beautiful  garden. 
We  agreed  together  that  he  should  pay  me  a  visit  in 
Dorsetshire  before  he  returned  to  America.  He  kept 
that  promise,  taking  my  family  by  storm,  and  leaving 
behind  him  an  impression  wThich  is  still  as  gracious  and 
fresh  as  the  hour  which  brought  him  into  our  circle. 

His  gift  of  charm,  I  think,  lies  in  a  wholly  unconscious 

retention  of  the  graces  of  boyhood.  There  is  no  hard- 

85 


86 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


ness  in  his  character,  no  sense  of  firmness  in  his  disposi¬ 
tion,  no  hint  of  decisive  energy  in  his  mind.  If  he  were  a 
writing-man,  Macaulay  would  frighten  him  and  Lamb 
would  be  very  dear  to  him.  Among  the  dogmatists  he 
would  be  all  at  sea ;  among  the  men  of  “push  and  go” 
he  would  be  trodden  underfoot.  He  suggests  to  you 
that  his  mind  is  still  full  of  wonder,  like  the  mind  of  a 
child. 

The  memories  of  his  defeats  have  left  no  bitterness ; 
the  remembrance  of  his  victories  has  brought  no  sense 
of  triumph.  His  pilgrim’s  progress,  I  think,  has  some¬ 
thing  of  the  radiance  and  innocence  that  we  find  in 
Bunyan’s  page.  Everything  in  his  nature  is  modest, 
gentle,  and  sincere.  He  is  in  this  world  as  a  shy  boy 
must  be  accounted  one  of  the  guests  at  a  roystering 
party.  You  feel  that  he  will  never  quite  settle  down, 
never  come  to  feel  that  all  this  bustle  and  stir  are  in  the 
true  nature  of  reality.  He  sees  something  that  the  rest 
of  us  do  not  see,  but  is  afraid  to  talk  about  it,  lest  he 
draw  attention  to  himself.  He  makes  you  think  of  Mr. 
Dick  without  his  delusion,  or  of  William  Blake  without 
his  insanity.  Every  motion  of  his  spirit  is  the  expression 
of  a  profound  and  incorruptible  simplicity — a  simplic¬ 
ity  so  wholly  unconscious  that  it  makes  everybody  love 
him.  Nothing  in  the  least  theatrical  has  ever  brushed 
even  the  outskirts  of  his  mind. 

He  spent  his  boyhood  in  a  small  American  country 
town,  characterised  by  all  the  respectabilities  and  pru¬ 
deries  of  a  thoroughly  compromising  civilisation,  en¬ 
tirely  without  the  inspiration  of  the  great  realities. 

He  was  one  of  three  children,  and  the  only  son.  Be¬ 
tween  father  and  son,  so  far  as  religion  was  concerned, 
there  was  a  wall,  but  between  son  and  mother  no  obsta- 


PERSONA  GRATA 


87 


cle  of  any  kind.  He  believed  everything  she  told  him, 
and  saw  nothing  in  her  life  to  criticise  or  to  disturb  his 
worship.  She  was  orthodox,  but  not  narrow-minded; 
he  loved  her  completely. 

The  first  incident  in  his  spiritual  life  occurred  when 
his  elder  sister,  seven  years  older  than  himself,  returned 
from  college  with  a  definite  religious  experience.  This 
change  in  his  sister  enabled  him  to  comprehend  the  dif¬ 
ference  between  “first-hand  and  second-hand  religion.” 
He  describes  the  change  in  his  sister  as  the  change  from 
sleep  to  waking.  Something  of  the  same  nature  occurred 
in  himself ;  he  was  no  longer  asleep,  but  could  not  feel  him¬ 
self  properly  awake. 

One  thing  greatly  struck  him  in  this  transitional  con¬ 
dition  of  mind — the  visible  fact  that  his  sister’s  life  was 
now  “propagating  in  the  lives  of  other  people.”  This 
seemed  to  him  a  very  wonderful  thing,  and  the  thought 
that  it  was  possible  for  one  person  to  make  another 
person  happy,  to  make  an  indifferent  person  active,  and 
a  bad  person  good,  stuck  in  his  mind. 

But,  though  he  took  part  in  the  religious  activities 
of  his  school,  he  found  that  he  didn’t  fit,  that  he  wasn’t 
in  the  least  like  his  sister,  and  therefore  he  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  was  not  yet  properly  awake.  This 
idea  of  sleep  and  waking  came  to  him  with  the  simple 
naturalness  characteristic  of  all  his  thinking.  It  was 
not  an  idea  put  into  his  mind  by  somebody  else.  He 
came  of  himself  to  think  of  people  as  asleep,  half-asleep, 
half-awake,  awake,  broad-awake. 

He  seems  to  have  passed  through  boyhood  without 
moral  disturbance  of  any  kind.  His  one  distress  was 
the  haunting  thought  that  he  could  not  establish  a  more 
real  relation  with  the  God  of  orthodox  religion.  But 


88 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


this  thought  was  without  distress.  It  rose  into  con¬ 
sciousness  between  periods  of  singular  happiness,  for 
he  was  a  boy  made  for  the  delights  of  schooldays. 

His  battle  began  in  his  first  term  at  college.  He  went 
to  Yale,  which  is  in  New  Haven,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  breathed  the  atmosphere  of  a  town  which  had  the 
flavour  of  a  great  city.  All  the  placid  provincialism  of 
the  little  country  town  in  which  he  had  dreamed  and 
mused  away  the  years  of  boyhood  was  consumed  in  the 
rakish  gaiety  of  this  University  town.  A  walk  down 
Chapel  Street  was  enough  to  set  his  head  spinning. 
This  street,  with  its  fashionable  shops,  its  numerous 
theatres,  and  its  cosmopolitan  restaurants,  is  a  favour¬ 
ite  parade  for  harlots  and  “adventure  girls” — pretty 
girls  from  the  chorus  of  comic  operas,  and  girls  of  the 
town  whose  moral  standards  are  on  the  same  level  as 
their  standards  in  manners,  literature,  and  art.  The 
effect  it  makes  on  a  provincial  is  one  of  rebuke ;  he  is 
persuaded  to  feel  that  he  is  narrow,  dull,  wanting  in 
spirit,  a  prisoner  to  fear,  a  captive  of  stupidity.  The 
bright  people  smiling  and  laughing  in  the  sunshine  of 
that  cheerful  thoroughfare  seem  to  flaunt  a  superior 
liberty  and  a  higher  courage  in  the  dazed  eyes  of  the 
youthful  provincial.  They  are  not  the  victims  of  illu¬ 
sion  ;  it  is  he,  gaping  at  them,  who  is  deceived.  They 
are  not  going  down  to  perdition;  but  he  wanting  to  join, 
and  yet  afraid,  is  on  the  road  to  mediocrity. 

Nothing  in  the  religion  of  this  boy  was  proof  against 
the  temptations  of  Chapel  Street.  For  the  first  time  in 
his  life  he  experienced  an  uprush  of  those  feelings  which 
are  so  powerful  to  create  the  highest  happiness  of  the 
human  soul,  so  powerful  to  destroy  the  last  rags  of  its 
liberty  and  self-respect.  He  was  tempted,  and  the  temp- 


PERSONA  GRATA 


89 


tation  seemed  to  foul  his  spirit.  He  could  not  withstand 
the  call  of  apparent  beauty  and  apparent  gladness. 

This  tremendous  pressure  on  his  purity  drove  him  to 
religion  as  a  refuge.  He  describes  it  as  a  home  to  fly  to 
while  he  was  at  college;  a  narcotic  which  brought  relief; 
an  argument,  a  persuasion,  but  not  light. 

On  his  way  home  at  the  end  of  his  first  term  he  passed 
through  New  York.  There  was  a  great  storm  crashing 
over  the  city,  and  he  watched  it  with  his  thoughts  set  on 
his  own  burden.  That  burden,  he  says,  was  awful.  He 
asked  himself,  Why  isn’t  Christ  personal  to  me?  and  in 
asking  that  question  a  sigh  broke  from  his  lips,  and  with 
the  escape  of  that  sigh  something  of  his  burden  seemed 
to  go.  He  felt  that  he  had  begun  to  get  an  answer. 

When  he  returned  to  Yale  it  was  with  the  decision  to 
follow  his  sister’s  example,  and  “to  propagate  in  other 
lives.”  The  experience  was  disheartening.  One  of  the 
students  was  very  ill,  perhaps  dying,  and  P.  G.  went  to 
see  him.  They  talked  together,  but  “I  couldn’t  get 
through  to  him,”  he  says ;  “there  were  barriers  be¬ 
tween  us  as  big  as  mountains.” 

He  spoke  of  another  man  he  tried  to  influence.  “This 
man,”  he  said,  “belonged  to  the  type  of  attractive  sinner 
— a  delightful  person,  a  man  with  personality;  charming, 
with  magic  about  him,  lovable.  He  was  intellectual,  and 
could  floor  my  persuasions  with  arguments  gathered  from 
history  and  human  experience  and  science.  He  was  quite 
friendly;  he  knew  I  cared  for  him;  I  think  he  liked  me; 
and  he  was  the  kind  of  man  who  appreciated  sympathy; 
but  nothing  I  could  say  made  the  smallest  difference  to 
him.  You  see,  what  I  was  doing  was  to  try  to  superim¬ 
pose  myself  on  other  people;  I  was  trying  to  do  them 


90 


MORE  TWICE-EORN  MEN 


good  from  a  height  on  which  I  wasn’t  really  standing. 
That  is  fatal.” 

Intellectual  difficulties  presented  themselves.  Ortho¬ 
dox  religion  was  exposed  to  the  attacks  of  clever  young 
men  who  knew  more  science  than  theology.  There  were, 
indeed,  intellectual  courses  at  the  college  which  seemed 
to  him  directed  against  religion.  He  was  shaken,  but  he 
suffered  no  mental  anguish.  Involved  in  theological  dis¬ 
putes,  he  had  nothing  to  say.  He  retired  from  them  to 
read  his  Bible  more  industriously  and  to  pray  more  earn¬ 
estly  for  light. 

His  sympathy  with  men  took  him  into  all  quarters. 
One  night  he  found  himself  in  a  room  full  of  rackety 
students,  who  presently  began  to  tell  coarse  stories.  P. 
G.  rebuked  them,  opposed  himself  single-handed  to  the 
whole  group.  “I  was  dealing  with  symptoms,  not  causes,” 
he  relates,  with  a  smile;  “instead  of  opposing  myself  to 
the  group,  I  ought  to  have  waited  and  reasoned  with  in¬ 
dividuals.” 

He  had  now  made  up  his  mind  to  attach  himself  to  the 
Christian  Student  Movement  in  India.  Temptation  had 
eased.  Prayer  meant  much  more  to  him  than  it  had  ever 
meant  in  the  past.  Religion  had  at  last  become  appar¬ 
ently  real.  Yet  a  trouble  remained  which  preyed  upon 
his  peace  of  mind.  “Religion  was  real  to  me,”  he  says, 
“but  I  could  not  give  it  away.” 

He  left  the  University  and  went  out  to  India.  For 
three  years,  loving  his  work,  he  remained  in  that  country, 
forming,  as  he  says,  superficial  friendships,  but  doing 
nothing  really  effective  to  stop  the  appalling  vice  which 
existed  among  young  Indians. 

He  returned  to  America,  and  joined  the  famous  semi- 


PERSONA  GRATA 


91 


nary  at  Hartford,  Connecticut.  For  a  year  he  was  pro¬ 
foundly  happy.  He  loved  his  freedom,  the  peace  of  the 
seminary,  and  the  long,  unbroken  hours  of  study.  He 
thought  he  was  fitting  himself  to  be  a  teacher  of  the 
Christian  religion. 

The  second  year  brought  disillusion,  and  something 
akin  to  terror.  Temptations  assaulted  him  with  a  quite 
incredible  force,  a  quite  sickening  persistency.  Doubt, 
too,  was  for  ever  whispering  to  his  conscience.  He  found 
that  his  heart  was  full  of  impurity,  his  mind  as  full  of  in¬ 
tellectual  dishonesty.  He  was  hedging,  compromising, 
pretending.  Rather  than  cause  pain  to  others  he  felt 
that  he  must  go  on  with  the  religious  life;  but  it  began 
to  be  to  him  a  shadow,  a  phantasm,  something  out  of  a 
forgotten  past  that  had  no  meaning  for  a  present  ter¬ 
ribly  and  overwhelmingly  insistent. 

He  said  to  me,  “I  really  do  not  know  any  form  of  men¬ 
tal  misery  so  tragic  as  the  misery  of  the  theological 
student — the  afflicted  disciple.  The  men  in  these  colleges 
and  seminaries  are  the  hungriest  groups  in  the  world. 
They  have  good  motives,  but  no  direction.  They  are 
assailed  by  temptations  which  make  them  ashamed.  They 
do  things  which  choke  them  with  a  sense  of  self-contempt, 
a  sense  of  hypocrisy.  The  atmosphere  is  more  corrupting 
and  damning  than  the  atmosphere  of  Universities.  One 
feels  that  these  places  are  full  of  repression,  full  of  un¬ 
uttered  sin.  There’s  something  furtive  about  them.  You 
don’t  get  public  drunkenness,  public  gambling,  public  im¬ 
morality.  There’s  no  visible  and  healthy  clash  of  good 
and  evil.  Good  is  taken  for  granted,  and  absence  of  evil 
is  also  taken  for  granted.  But  the  evil  is  there ;  and  the 
good — wTell,  it  is  not  easy  to  feel  its  influence.  As  for  the 
professors,  their  only  experience  of  religion  is  a  memory. 


92 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


They  tell  the  students  what  happened  years  ago,  not 
what  happened  coming  down  in  the  tram,  or  in  the  home 
last  night.  They  have  no  reality  for  these  desperate 
students,  who  spend  half  their  time  studying  the  soul¬ 
killing  controversies  of  long-ago  theologies,  and  the 
other  half  in  fighting  temptations  sharp  as  steel.  People 
wonder  at  drunkenness  and  ‘rags’  among  Varsity  men; 
I  think  I  know  how  those  things  come  about.  They  are 
attempts  to  break  away  from  repression,  to  escape  from 
a  maddening  sense  of  conflicting  duality.” 

One  of  the  students  at  Hartford  had  been  a  miner 
and  a  sailor;  he  had  made  a  fortune  and  spent  it.  He 
was  about  thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  used  to  write 
sermons  for  the  other  students.  He  had  a  gift  for 
preaching  which  created  admiration  among  the  younger 
men.  P.  G.  liked  this  strange  man  and  talked  to  him, 
tried  to  “get  below  the  surface  to  the  place  where  he 
lived.”  One  day  the  ex-miner  said  to  him,  “Shall  I  tell 
you  what  I  am?  I’m  a  damned  hypocrite.  I’ve  been 
twice  with  women  quite  lately.” 

P.  G.  had  the  terror  always  before  his  eyes  that  he  too 
might  fall.  One  night  in  New  York  he  had  to  rush  into 
the  streets  and  walk  as  hard  as  he  could  go  for  miles, 
fearing  that  the  temptation  would  beat  him.  He  says, 
“I  was  a  divided  personality.  There  were  two  of  me; 
no  unity.  I  felt  that  I  might  fall ;  yet  I  felt  that  nothing 
on  earth  should  make  me.” 

He  was  in  this  state  of  mind,  seeing  little  hope  before 
him  of  avoiding  hypocrisy,  when  F.  B.  came  to  Hart¬ 
ford  as  an  Extension  Lecturer.  His  subject  was,  “How 
to  deal  with  Other  Men;  how  to  get  into  their  Lives.” 
One  day  P.  G.  was  walking  in  the  grounds  of  the  college 


PERSONA  GRATA 


93 


when  someone,  coming  up  from  behind,  took  his  arm, 
and  said,  “This  is  P.  G.,  isn’t  it?”  P.  G.  turned  to 
find  F.  B.  at  his  side,  smiling  in  the  far-away  manner 
which  sometimes  takes  the  place  of  his  usual  alert¬ 
ness.  He  began  to  speak  of  someone  in  India  who  had 
met  P.  G. 

The  immediate  feeling  of  P.  G.  was  one  of  convic¬ 
tion  that  he  could  speak  with  complete  frankness  and 
confidence  to  this  stranger — stranger  no  longer,  for  the 
touch  of  his  hand  had  conveyed  an  instant  feeling  of 
friendliness. 

“I  knew,”  he  told  me,  “that  here  was  a  man  of  under¬ 
standing  sympathy,  one  who  wouldn’t  be  shocked,  one 
who  could  help.  Another  thing  I  knew — that  there  was 
no  professionalism  about  him,  that  he  wouldn’t  think  of 
me  as  ‘a  case,’  that  he  was  a  genuine  man  genuinely  in¬ 
terested  in  another  man.  I  remember,  too,  I  had  the 
feeling  that  in  this  man  there  was  plenty  of  time.  Noth¬ 
ing  suggested  commercial  bustle.  He  seemed  to  me 
to  be  living  in  a  wonderful  spiritual  leisure.  We  parted 
with  nothing  much  said  between  us,  but  on  the  follow¬ 
ing  day,  after  breakfast,  he  came  and  sat  with  me  on  the 
garden  steps  in  the  morning  sun.  For  the  first  time  in 
my  life  I  told  another  man  exactly  howr  I  stood,  and 
something  of  what  I  had  suffered.  I  turned  to  him 
and  said,  ‘My  mind  is  filled  with  a  cloud  of  evil  thoughts ; 
why  do  I  have  these  evil  thoughts?’  To  my  astonish¬ 
ment  he  said  at  once,  ‘Why,  P.  G.,  I  have  those  evil 
thoughts,’  as  if  he  were  surprised  that  they  should  worry 
me.  Directly  he  said  that  I  had  the  feeling  he  knew 
what  to  do  with  them.  There  was  a  deep  sense  of  relief 
in  my  mind.  He  said  nothing  more  to  help  me.  All  he 
added  was  that  I  must  come  to  see  him  later  in  the  day. 


94 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


But  I  felt  extraordinarily  happy,  just  as  if  the  fight  was 

over. 

“When  we  came  to  have  our  talk  he  told  me  that  the 
reason  I  was  tortured  was  simply  because  I  was  fight¬ 
ing  temptation  direct.  The  attempt  at  repression  was 
the  cause  of  my  suffering.  It  was  necessary  for  me  to 
leave  all  such  fatal  egoism  and  to  get  out  into  the  lives 
of  other  men — altruism,  Christianity.  He  spoke  quietly 
and  convincingly.  But  I  wanted  it  my  own  way,  and 
comfortable;  I  didn’t  want  to  pay  the  price;  so  I  chal¬ 
lenged  him  to  tell  me  why  I  could  not  get  relief  in  the 
old  way,  by  prayer  and  reading  the  Bible.  He  told 
me  that  I  had  to  get  into  the  lives  of  other  men,  and 
that  was  all  there  was  to  it.  Selfishness  was  my  sin.  I 
wasn’t  thinking  of  others. 

“One  day,  shortly  after  this,  I  was  walking  in  town 
with  him  when  we  came  across  two  drunken  men.  He 
told  me  to  take  one  while  he  took  the  other.  I  was  para¬ 
lysed  by  fear.  I  hid  behind  a  telegraph-post.  But  F. 
B.  collared  his  man  and  saw  him  home.  Next  day,  in  the 
midst  of  a  meeting,  F.  B.  had  an  irresistible  impulsion  to 
go  out  into  the  street;  someone  there  wanted  him.  He 
left  the  meeting,  went  out  into  the  street,  and  there  was 
the  drunken  man  of  last  night.  F.  B.  put  that  man  on 
the  right  road. 

“When  he  told  me  this  I  felt  poverty-stricken.  Re¬ 
ligion  began  to  seem  to  me  something  that  was  not 
natural.  I  should  never  be  able  to  handle  other  men  as 
F.  B.  handled  them.  I  was  like  a  young  surgeon  with 
trembling  knife  confronting  a  new  operation. 

“I  confessed  this  feeling  to  F.  B.,  and  he  took  me  a 
step  further;  he  taught  me  the  principles  of  religion. 
He  explained  that  I  felt  helpless  because  my  religion 


PERSONA  GRATA 


95 


was  not  in  action.  This  meant  that  I  had  never  ex¬ 
perienced  ‘the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection.5  If 
I  had  real  love  for  men  I  should  be  willing  to  share  my 
temptations  with  them,  to  confess  to  them  my  secret 
thoughts,  to  get  alongside  of  their  souls,  to  work  with 
them  and  for  them  to  the  end  of  redemption.  Every 
man,  he  said,  could  test  the  reality  of  his  religion  by 
finding  out  whether  he  would  make  sacrifices  to  help 
others. 

“I  saw  what  he  meant  intellectually,  but  I  didn’t  want 
to  come  to  it.  I  told  myself  that  there  was  something 
immodest  in  his  suggestion,  that  my  spiritual  life  was 
too  sacred  to  talk  about — as  if  anything  is  too  sacred 
that  helps  other  men !  So  I  withstood  him. 

“One  day  he  surprised  me  very  much  by  saying  that 
he  was  going  back  to  China  for  six  months  and  wanted 
me  to  go  with  him.  I  had  another  year  to  run  at  Hart¬ 
ford.  China  did  not  attract  me.  I’m  not  sure  that 
F.  B.  attracted  me.  I  rather  shrank  from  his  too  per¬ 
sonal  methods.  But  he  persuaded  me,  and  those  six 
months  stretched  into  two  years,  and  those  two  years  are 
the  happiest  memories  in  my  life. 

“Before  I  left  Hartford  I  decided  to  try  F.  B.’s 
method.  I  went  to  a  theological  student  who  seemed  to 
me  to  be  troubled,  to  be  suffering,  and  confessed  to  him 
my  own  secret  sin — impurity.  The  feeling  of  relief  was 
extraordinary.  The  student  came  to  life,  confessed  his 
secret  sin  to  me,  and  ended  our  talk  by  saying,  ‘Prayer  is 
going  to  mean  something  now ;  the  Bible  is  going  to 
mean  something  now.5  To  both  of  us  it  seemed  that 
religion  had  never  been  real  to  us  before,  never  been 
alive,  and  that  now  it  was  the  very  biggest  thing  alive. 

“The  revelation  came  to  me  in  this  conviction:  God 


96 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


floods  in  when  a  man  is  honest .  I  had  been  looking  at 
religion  from  the  intellectual  point  of  view.  I  had  never 
really  seen  it  as  the  supreme  power  of  morality.  I  had 
never  really  apprehended  that  religion  redeems  and 
dominates  the  sinful  heart  of  man — not  merely  the  sin  of 
impurity,  but  the  entire  moral  life — selfishness  and  all 
our  moral  hesitancies. 

“I  came  to  myself  in  confessing  to  another  man,  that 
is  to  say,  in  being  perfectly  honest.  For  the  first  time  in 
my  life  I  felt  that  there  was  no  pretence  in  my  soul,  that 
another  man  whom  I  wanted  to  help  knew  me  as  I  knew 
myself,  and  that  I  really  and  truly  did  want  to  help 
him — that  I  had  torn  away  all  pretensions  in  order  that 
I  might  be  able  to  help  him. 

“I  am  convinced  that  confession  plays  a  tremendous 
part  in  religious  life.  I  don’t  think  it  is  too  much  to 
say  that  until  a  man  confesses  his  sin  to  another  man 
he  can  never  really  be  spiritually  vital.  One  knows 
scores  of  men  who  carry  guilty  consciences,  and  who 
think  they  square  accounts  by  confessing  their  sins  in 
secret  to  God,  and  genuinely  trying  not  to  commit  those 
sins  again.  Such  men  can  never  help  amother ;  such 
men  haven’t  the  ghost  of  an  idea  what  redemption  means. 
They  pretend.  Their  religion  is  a  form.  Their  life  is 
a  dead  letter. 

“An  interesting  story  occurs  to  me.  A  friend  of 
mine  wanted  very  much  to  help  a  particular  friend  of 
his  who  was  involved  in  some  trouble  with  a  girl.  He 
tried  and  tried,  in  vain.  He  asked  me  why  he  couldn’t 
do  this  thing.  He  wasn’t  lacking  in  sympathy;  he 
wanted  to  help  his  friend;  why  couldn’t  he?  I  got  him 
to  go  over  his  past  life.  He  found  that  there  was  an  un¬ 
confessed  sin  on  his  conscience.  As  a  schoolboy  he  had 


PERSONA  GRATA 


97 


stolen  money  from  his  father.  It  was  a  hard  task,  but 
he  went  to  his  father  and  confessed  his  sin.  The  result 
was  not  only  ability  to  help  his  friend,  but  a  real  pente- 
costal  joy  in  his  own  heart.  He  said  to  me,  ‘Now 
I’m  ready  to  go  all  the  way  in  this  thing.’  How 
simply  a  man  can  be  born  again!  One  act  of  honesty. 
Reality !” 

Let  me  interrupt  the  narrative  for  a  moment  to  re¬ 
mind  the  reader  that  in  Morton  Prince’s  The  Uncon¬ 
scious  many  stories  showing  that  some  forgotten 
incident  in  the  past,  but  not  forgotten  by  the  uncon¬ 
scious  mind,  may  prey  upon  physical  health  and  even 
be  the  cause  of  serious  physical  ills. 

I  remember  one  case  in  particular.  A  woman  sub¬ 
ject  to  epileptic  fits  was  hypnotised  by  Dr.  Prince, 
and  taken  back  by  him  through  all  the  days  of  her  life 
in  search  for  the  shock  which  had  deranged  her  mental 
processes.  He  discovered  from  her  unconscious  mind 
that  once,  as  a  little  girl,  she  had  been  sitting  alone  in 
her  nursery  with  a  kitten  in  her  lap,  that  this  kitten  had 
suddenly  had  a  fit,  that  she  had  screamed  for  her  nurse, 
terrified  by  the  kitten,  and  that  the  nurse  did  not  come  for 
a  very  long  time.  The  doctor  awakened  her  from  hyp¬ 
nosis,  told  her  of  this  incident,  of  which  she  had  no 
memory,  and  so  disposed  of  the  cause  of  her  trouble. 
From  this  case  it  will  be  seen  that  even  things  which  the 
conscious  mind  has  forgotten  may  remain  in  the  folds 
of  being,  festering  the  entire  life. 

Religion,  one  may  observe,  seems  to  have  known  by 
instinct  what  painful  science  is  only  now  beginning  to 
suspect.  Always  it  has  taught  the  need  of  confession, 
restitution,  and  a  cleansed  heart. 


98 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


P.  G.,  at  any  rate,  is  insistent  on  the  power  of  con¬ 
fession  to  fill  the  spirit  with  an  entirely  new  sense  of 
life.  He  lays  all  his  emphasis  there.  To  him  the  matter 
is  not  in  the  least  mysterious.  Confession  is  merely  a 
sign  of  an  absolute  honesty  within,  a  sign  that  the  long 
attempt  to  compromise  and  equivocate  is  over,  a  sign 
that  the  personality  is  at  last  unified,  not  divided,  a  sign 
that  the  soul  really  means  what  it  says,  and  truly  believes 
what  it  has  hitherto  only  professed  or  tried  to  believe. 

By  confession  he  means  no  formal  act  of  clericalism, 
performed  to  square  accounts  with  the  Deity,  but  a 
most  personal  act  on  the  part  of  one  man  to  another 
— particularly  to  the  man  one  is  trying  to  help — an 
act  that  attests  honesty  and  brings  one  man  close  to 
another,  in  sympathy  and  reality. 

He  is  the  more  certain  of  the  power  of  confession 
from  his  experience  in  the  East.  He  told  me  that  he 
found  he  could  do  nothing  with  men  in  China,  Japan, 
and  Korea  until  he  persuaded  them  to  confess  their 
secret  sins,  but  that  directly  this  confession  was  made 
they  experienced  precisely  the  same  joyous  relief  which 
he  had  experienced.  The  confessions  of  young  men  in 
China,  Japan,  and  Korea,  he  says,  fit  perfectly  in  with 
the  confessions  of  young  men  in  England  and  America. 
He  agrees  with  F.  B.,  “Crows  are  black  the  whole  world 
over.” 

“I  saw  many  miracles  in  the  East,”  he  said  to  me, 
“and  I  am  now  seeing  like  miracles  in  America  and  in 
England.  All  the  world  over  sin  is  darkening  men’s 
lives,  and  t^pocrisy  is  paralysing  the  power  of  religion 
to  save  them.  Religion  is  a  universal  force.  It  does 
not  much  matter,  I  think,  what  theological  language  is 


PERSONA  GRATA 


99 


used  to  express  the  immense  miracle  of  redemption. 
What  matters  is  making  it  real  to  suffering  men  that 
directly  they  are  absolutely  honest  in  desiring  release 
from  the  slavery  of  sin,  God  will  flood  into  their  hearts, 
and  they  really  will  be  born  again.  Redemption  cannot 
come,  I’m  perfectly  certain  of  this,  until  the  heart  is  so 
hungry  for  it  that  it  will  confess  everything  to  another. 
One  has  to  be  awfully  real  oneself  to  experience  reality. 

“I  remember  a  strange  incident  in  China.  I  came 
across,  in  one  of  the  mission  colleges,  a  Chinese  teacher 
who  was  a  complete  hypocrite.  He  drank,  he  gambled, 
and  he  had  relations  with  married  women.  He  was  a 
man  of  some  intellect  and  no  little  power.  One  night, 
sitting  over  the  fire,  he  said  to  me,  ‘All  this  Christianity 
is  a  legend.  Jesus,  you  know,  is  not  an  historical  figure. 
I  never  say  my  prayers.  I  teach,  because  I  can  teach. 
But,’  with  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders,  ‘I  do  not  believe 
what  I  teach.’  I  took  no  notice  of  his  effort  to  get  me 
into  a  theological  argument.  I  spoke  of  the  Christ  of 
universal  human  experience,  the  Christ  who  saves,  the 
Christ  who  redeems,  the  Christ  who  had  made  all  the 
difference  to  me.  He  turned,  with  a  strange  light  in 
his  eyes,  looking  at  me  over  his  shoulder,  his  hands  still 
extended  to  the  fire,  and  ‘How  would  I  take  that  medi¬ 
cine?’  he  asked.  I  said  to  him,  ‘Will  you  pray  from 
your  heart,  “Jesus,  if  there  be  a  Jesus,  I  want  you  to 
clean  me  up”?  ’  To  my  surprise,  then  and  there,  look¬ 
ing  into  the  fire,  he  prayed  that  prayer.  Then  he  got 
up  and  left  me.  The  next  day  he  came  to  me  and  said, 
‘You  know,  this  thing  works  marvellously.’  It  was  his 
first  experience  of  personal  religion.  He  had  never  be¬ 
fore  seen  redemption  as  the  central  fact  of  Christianity. 
He  said  to  me,  ‘Now  I  feel  on  top.’  He  had  never  before 


100 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


looked  at  religion  as  a  real  power  that  enters  the  heart, 
changes  the  life,  and  gives  a  new  birth  to  the  soul. 
I  am  quite  sure  he  had  never  wanted  to  be  cleaned 
up. 

“What  strikes  me  most  in  all  these  wonderful  experi¬ 
ences — for  it  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  see  a  man  born 
again — is  their  extreme  simplicity.  Directly  a  man  is 
really  honest  the  miracle  occurs.  Many  deceive  them¬ 
selves.  They  protest  that  they  want  to  be  rid  of  sin, 
and  it  isn’t  really  true.  Others  do  want  to  be  rid  of 
their  sin,  but  selfishly,  for  their  own  ease,  their  own 
self-respect,  or  because  they  are  afraid  of  being  found 
out.  Those  find  it  difficult.  But  when  a  man  hungers 
and  thirsts  to  be  rid  of  sin  so  that  he  may  help  others,  it 
really  is  extraordinary  how  soon  the  step  is  taken  from 
darkness  to  light,  from  sleep  to  waking.  It  seems 
natural  and  right,  when  one  considers  that  the  message 
of  Jesus  was  unselfishness.  There  can’t  be  any  vital 
experience  of  religion  where  selfishness  has  got  a  hold, 
whatever  form  it  takes.  What  surprises  one  is  not  the 
miracle  of  conversion,  but  the  ease  with  which  even  very 
good  men  will  go  on  deceiving  themselves  all  their  life 
long;  men  who  are  moral  and  philanthropic,  but  with 
some  root  of  selfishness  in  their  hearts,  which  prevents 
them  from  ever  experiencing  a  new  birth  or  saving  a 
man  who  is  lost.  Why  do  these  people  deceive  them¬ 
selves?  It  seems  such  a  mad  idea,  attempting  to  hood¬ 
wink  God.  I  suppose  they  are  not  properly  awake,  that 
they  don’t  understand  what  they  are  doing.” 

Few  of  the  followers  of  F.  B.  exercise  so  great  an  in¬ 
fluence  over  others  as  this  gracious  person  whose  voice 
and  smile,  could  I  convey  them  to  this  “brutish  paper,” 


PERSONA  GRATA 


101 


would  endear  him  to  the  reader  and  give  a  deeper  mean¬ 
ing  to  his  words. 

I  spoke  to  him  a  little  of  theological  difficulties.  He 
admitted  those  difficulties,  and  agreed  that  they  will 
have  to  be  faced;  but  he  said,  very  modestly  and  unpre¬ 
tentiously,  that  redemption  would  remain  the  central 
truth  of  religious  life  whatever  might  be  the  future  lan¬ 
guage  of  theology. 

“There  is  no  fact  so  great  in  the  experience  of  men,” 
he  said  quietly,  “as  the  fact  that  a  soul  on  the  extreme 
edge  of  destruction  can  be  redeemed  to  life  merely  by 
turning  round — sincerely  turning  right  round.” 

The  most  beautiful  of  all  the  parables  certainly 
teaches  that  the  Father  can  do  nothing  until  the  son 
has  turned  his  face  homewards. 


CHAPTER  VI 
BEAU  IDEAL 

CONSPICUOUS  in  the  house-party  for  his  good  looks 
was  a  man  well  known  at  Eton  and  Oxford,  whom 
we  will  here  call  Beau  Ideal.  Over  six  feet,  with  a  fresh 
boyish  complexion,  clear  bright  eyes,  thick  fair  hair  very 
carefully  brushed,  a  clipped  moustache,  and  something 
a  little  dandiacal  about  his  clothes,  this  young  Hercules 
of  twenty-four  English  summers  looked  exactly  like  the 
circulating  library’s  idea  of  an  officer  in  the  Brigade 
of  Guards. 

I  noticed  that  while  he  lounged  in  a  deep  chair,  speak¬ 
ing  with  a  tired  drawl,  as  though  discussion  bored  him, 
he  was  activity  itself  when  he  got  upon  his  feet.  One 
caught  sight  of  him  at  times  in  voluminous  flannels  and 
coarse-knitted  sweater  hurrying  away  to  get  an  hour’s 
tennis ;  or  missed  him  from  the  luncheon  table  to  learn 
that  he  had  gone  off  to  play  in  a  cricket  match.  Some¬ 
times  it  seemed  to  me  that  behind  his  boyish  handsome¬ 
ness  there  smouldered  the  flames  of  a  once  difficult  temper. 
But  the  chief  impression  he  made  on  one’s  mind  was  that 
of  the  perfectly  healthy,  sport-loving,  and  well-bred 
young  Briton  at  his  topmost  best.  Whether  he  had 
brains  was  another  matter.  How  he  came  to  be  inter¬ 
ested  in  religion  puzzled  me  a  good  deal. 

102 


BEAU  IDEAL 


103 


He  amused  me  one  night  by  an  answer  he  made  to  a 
challenging  question  by  F.  B.  The  Surgeon  of  Souls 
had  been  contrasting,  with  a  deep  and  rather  reproach¬ 
ful  seriousness,  the  way  in  which  the  movement  for  per¬ 
sonal  religion  was  spreading  in  the  Universities  of  the 
United  States  with  that  movement  in  the  British  Isles. 
He  said  it  was  up  to  English  Varsity  men  to  see  that 
much  more  energy  was  put  into  this  work ;  what  did  they 
propose  to  do  about  it?  (Silence.)  What  suggestions 
had  they  to  make?  (Silence.)  Surely  some  of  them 
had  at  least  a  part  of  an  idea  in  their  minds. 

After  some  slow-dragging  moments  of  nervous  silence, 
Beau  Ideal,  sprawling  in  a  big  chair,  lazily  made  answer, 
“If  you  told  Oxford  men  that  an  Oxford  man  wanted  to 
talk  to  them  about  religion  they  wouldn’t  pay  the  small¬ 
est  attention  to  you,  beyond  a  glance  to  see  if  you  were 
drunk  or  off  your  head.  But  I  believe  there  is  another 
University  in  England ;  if  I  remember  rightly,  at  a  place 
called  Cambridge;  and  I  rather  think  that  if  you  told 
Oxford  men  a  fellow  from  this  extraordinary  place 
wanted  to  speak  to  them  they’d  go,  even  if  it  was  to 
hear  about  religion,  just  out  of  curiosity  to  see  what 
manner  of  animal  Cambridge  produces.” 

In  this  way,  rousing  the  Cambridge  men  of  the  party 
to  intellectual  reprisals,  Beau  Ideal  made  a  valuable 
contribution  to  the  debate.  Behind  the  persiflage  was 
an  idea,  and  within  the  irony  a  truth. 

Seldom  have  I  been  more  out  of  my  reckoning  with  a 
human  being  than  I  presently  found  myself  in  the  case 
of  this  handsome  young  giant.  He  came  to  see  me  in 
London,  and  alone  together  I  discovered  that  he  was 
not  merely  interested  in  religion  as  a  possible  theory  of 


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existence,  but  that  he  was  truly  consumed  with  a  fer¬ 
vorous  passion  for  all  those  intellectual  and  moral  sacri¬ 
fices  which  orthodox  religion  so  obviously  calls  upon  a 
man  to  make.  Instead  of  a  dandy  I  had  caught  a 
fanatic. 

His  manner  completely  changed.  There  was  the  same 
lounging  disposition  of  the  big  body,  but  no  drawl  in 
the  speech,  no  sleepy  languor  of  the  eyelids.  Indeed, 
there  were  moments  when  quite  visibly  he  became  elec¬ 
tric,  and  had  to  put  restraint  on  his  enthusiasm ;  mo¬ 
ments  when  his  quick  and  eager  words  broke  suddenly 
down,  and  a  blush  of  misgiving  came  into  his  face,  a  look 
of  inquiry  darting  from  his  eyes,  as  though  the  mind 
would  discover  whether  it  was  not  prejudicing  its  case 
by  moral  emotionalism.  Wonderful  to  relate,  Beau 
Ideal  is  a  genuine  firebrand. 

From  boyhood,  I  learned,  he  has  had  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  bridling  a  hot  temper.  The  sound  of  a 
voice  could  irritate  him,  an  ugly  fashion  in  clothes  make 
him  hate  the  wearer,  an  opinion  with  which  he  did  not 
agree  rouse  in  him  an  impulse  almost  homicidal.  He  has 
tramped  many  miles  over  the  highlands  merely  to  escape 
from  people.  He  has  sailed  and  fished  for  days  only 
as  an  excuse  to  flee  from  society  that  rubbed  him  the 
wrong  way.  Games,  which  he  plays  with  tremendous 
vigour,  were  the  chief  outlet  in  his  boyhood  for  irritable 
energies  boiling  up  within  him  to  the  fever  point  of  ex¬ 
asperation. 

When  he  went  to  Christ  Church  he  was  still  first  and 
foremost  an  athlete,  but  there  was  a  disposition  in  him 
to  scholarship,  and  he  was  soon  regarded  as  an  under¬ 
graduate  with  an  intellectual  future.  He  found  the  ten- 


BEAU  IDEAL 


105 


tative,  superior,  and  philosophical  temperament  of  Ox¬ 
ford  entirely  to  his  liking.  His  set  in  the  House  was  the 
best  of  its  time.  It  was  composed  of  men  who  took 
themselves  seriously,  but  were  careful  not  to  let  it  be 
thought  that  they  took  themselves  too  seriously.  In 
this  set  Beau  Ideal,  by  grace  of  body  and  charm  of  mind, 
was  a  figure  of  some  eminence. 

His  thoughts  were  occupied  chiefly  by  politics  and 
philosophy.  He  contracted  an  interest  for  social  prob¬ 
lems.  The  world  appeared  to  him  as  a  diverting  problem 
providing  endless  opportunities  for  delightful  theories — 
a  serious  problem,  but  a  problem  all  the  better  for  being 
regarded  with  a  certain  irony  of  outlook. 

Across  this  intellectual  life  ran  the  interrupting  diag¬ 
onal  of  a  sex  pride.  He  knew  very  well  that  he  was  a 
rather  out-of-the-way  good-looking  person.  He  liked 
to  notice  the  effect  he  produced  on  entering  a  ballroom. 
It  pleased  him  immensely  that  the  prettiest  girls,  wher¬ 
ever  he  went,  gave  him  special  glances  and  wanted  him 
very  much  to  dance  with  them.  He  showed  no  outward 
sign  of  this  pardonable  vanity;  indeed,  he  assumed  an 
intentional  modesty  to  aggravate  the  effect  of  his 
charm ;  but  inwardly  he  was  about  as  full  of  foppish 
conceit  as  any  “lady’s  man”  that  ever  lived. 

So  his  days  were  passing,  not  innocent  of  feverish 
sin,  but  chiefly  taken  up  with  philosophy,  games,  danc¬ 
ing,  and  affairs  of  the  wardrobe,  when  one  summer’s 
night  he  was  introduced  to  F.  B.  in  Peck  Quad.  F.  B. 
suggested  that  they  should  take  a  walk  round  the  Quad, 
and  began  to  ask  Beau  Ideal  what  he  was  thinking  about. 
Beau  Ideal,  rather  puzzled  by  this  direct  invasion  of  his 
privacies,  but  setting  it  down  to  the  crudeness  of  Yankee 
manners,  began  to  speak  about  life  in  general — his  in- 


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terest  in  eugenics,  birth  control,  the  problems  of  popu¬ 
lation,  and  the  chief  social  difficulties  of  the  time. 

All  of  a  sudden  F.  B.  said  to  him:  “Those  things 
aren’t  disturbing  you.  You  know  what’s  robbing  you  of 
peace,  don’t  you?”  And,  then  and  there,  as  Beau  Ideal 
puts  it,  he  began  “stirring  up  the  mud.” 

It  was  a  beautiful,  still  summer  night,  with  pale  stars 
above  the  roofs  of  the  college,  the  moon  coming  up  in  a 
mist  of  silver,  the  sound  of  the  ancient  city  at  that  late 
hour  little  more  than  a  far-distant  sea-murmur.  Beau 
Ideal  could  hear  his  heart  beating  as  he  listened  to  the 
trenchant  words  of  this  inexplicable  man  walking  at 
his  side ;  he  could  feel  his  cheeks  colouring  in  the  cool 
air  as  the  mud  stirred  up  by  the  American  got  into  the 
circulation  of  his  blood  and  mounted  to  his  conscience. 
Never  before  had  a  man  spoken  to  him  as  this  man  was 
now  speaking. 

Left  to  himself,  with  a  disturbed  consciousness  and 
a  guilty  conscience,  Beau  Ideal  tried  in  vain  to  take  up 
the  threads  of  his  former  life.  F.  B.  had  said  something 
to  him  which  made  the  fact  of  sin  a  towering  and  menac¬ 
ing  fact  of  human  life.  He  could  not  escape  from  the 
thought  that  all  the  social  and  political  problems  with 
which  he  had  hitherto  amused  his  intellect — problems 
convenient  enough  as  topics  of  conversation — were  so 
many  molehills  in  comparison  with  this  single  moun¬ 
tainous  fact  of  human  sin. 

Discussions  with  some  of  his  friends  who  had  gone 
rather  deeper  into  this  same  great  matter  with  the 
American  Surgeon  of  Souls  presently  led  Beau  Ideal  to 
lend  the  light  of  his  countenance  to  the  proceedings  of 
the  Christian  Student  Movement  in  Christ  Church.  If 


BEAU  IDEAL 


107 


you  can  imagine  Apollo  stepping  down  from  Olympus 
to  help  an  infant  class  to  appreciate  the  poetry  of  Mrs. 
Hemans  or  Martin  Tupper  you  may  suitably  figure  to 
yourself  the  attitude  of  Beau  Ideal  in  his  association  with 
the  Christian  Student  Movement’s  activities  at  the 
House. 

He  was  careful  from  the  first  to  make  it  understood 
that  his  interest  in  that  movement  was  social  and  politi¬ 
cal.  Where  that  movement  was  concerned  with  issues 
worthy  the  attention  of  an  intellectual  man  of  the  world, 
there  our  young  god  was  willing  to  appear  in  the  Ro¬ 
man  garments  of  a  Mecsenas.  As  to  anything  so  con¬ 
trary  to  the  established  customs  of  good  breeding  as 
personal  discussions  concerning  the  hypothetical  rela¬ 
tions  of  an  unproved  soul  with  a  theoretical  God,  clearly 
in  that  respect  nothing  could  be  expected  of  him. 

But  F.  B.  had  stirred  up  the  mud  so  effectually  that 
when  he  was  alone  by  himself  Beau  Ideal  was  far  too 
conscious  of  his  own  personal  sins — not  other  people’s 
sins — for  peace  of  mind.  Instead  of  the  boyish  irrita¬ 
bility  which  had  once  made  such  a  turmoil  of  his  days 
he  found  himself  now  assailed  by  a  profound  and  morbid 
unrest  of  soul  which  robbed  him  of  peace  and  dogged 
every  step  of  his  happiness. 

To  be  rid  of  such  a  tax  on  his  patience  he  played 
games  harder  than  ever,  and  harder  than  ever  applied 
himself  to  a  study  of  philosophy.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
with  a  healthy  mind  in  a  healthy  body  he  would  pres¬ 
ently  be  able  not  only  to  form  a  satisfactory  thesis  of 
existence,  but  to  get  rid  of  certain  bad  habits  which  he 
did  not  doubt  degraded  him. 

But  the  unrest  continued.  It  continued  till  he  found 


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himself  confronted  by  a  choice,  which  he  calls  the  choice 
between  philosophy  or  religion.  Either  he  had  to  re¬ 
main  outside  the  struggle  of  man’s  soul,  looking  on  at  it 
with  interest,  patience,  tolerance,  and  a  calming  irony, 
or  he  had  to  take  a  plunge  into  a  quite  other  fount  and 
cleanse  himself  of  that  which  fouled  him,  body  and  soul. 

All  his  inclinations  were  towards  philosophy;  all  his 
heredity  was  against  religion. 

In  this  frame  of  mind  he  went  away  to  Sark,  on 
purpose  to  fight  the  matter  out  with  himself  and  by 
himself.  It  happened  that  one  day,  sitting  on  a  rock 
in  a  high  wind,  with  a  great  and  staggering  sea  breaking 
in  vast  commotion  against  that  ironbound  coast,  so 
that  he  was  drenched  with  spindrift  and  swayed  by  the 
gale,  this  problem  resolved  itself  into  one  clear  question 
which  thus  presented  itself  to  his  mind: 

Is  it  true,  or  untrue,  that  philosophy,  regarded  as  a 
mathematical  system  of  thought,  fails  to  provide  an 
adequate  answer  to  the  question  propounded  by  a  sys¬ 
tem  within  it,  namely  ethics,  as  to  how  a  man  is  to  live 
according  to  his  highest  lights — or,  as  Aristotle  would 
say,  Konra  tov  opGov  Xoy6v,  according  to  right  reason? 

He  began  his  answer  by  confessing  that  a  man  does 
not  need  philosophy  to  teach  him  what  is  right  and  what 
is  wrong.  Philosophy  is  unnecessary  to  tell  a  man  what 
he  should  do  in  the  sphere  of  conduct.  Within  the  man 
himself,  born  with  him  into  this  world,  an  inherent  part 
of  his  nature,  perhaps  as  old  as  the  first  movement  of 
evolution,  is  a  disposition  towards  his  best,  at  any  rate 
a  recognition  that  there  is  a  best  and  that  there  is  a 
worst. 

Then  he  saw  that  human  progress — that  is  to  say, 


BEAU  IDEAL 


109 


human  happiness  and  human  freedom — had  chiefly  de¬ 
pended  on  man’s  response  to  this  movement  within  him 
— this  movement  in  the  direction  of  the  best  which  had 
so  often  in  the  history  of  humanity  involved  the  supreme 
sacrifice. 

At  this  point  he  asked  himself  what  part  philosophy 
had  played  in  that  struggle.  Many  great  philosophers 
had  elevated  man  to  a  noble  dignity  by  the  exercise  of 
purely  rational  faculties,  but  what  part  had  philosophy 
itself  played  in  freeing  the  multitude  from  the  tyranny 
of  evil  habits  and  ennobling  the  moral  character  of  the 
human  race? 

His  own  experience  told  him  that  philosophy  is  often 
employed  to  blind  men’s  eyes  to  the  real  issues,  to  find 
an  excuse  for  delinquency,  to  explain  away  a  cancer  of 
moral  life,  to  justify  in  theory  practices  which  the  con¬ 
science  of  the  individual  tells  him  to  be  wrong.  The 
moral  life  of  Plato — wTho  cares  to  think  about  it?  Ac¬ 
ton’s  intellectual  contempt  for  those  who  would  find  in 
climate  or  in  chronology  an  excuse  for  evil — how  justi¬ 
fiable  !  Plausible  explanations,  how  often  is  this  the 
work  of  philosophy  in  action! 

Another  idea  presented  itself  to  his  mind.  Philosophy 
gives  man  a  false  notion  of  liberty  by  challenging  all 
rules  and  refusing  to  recognise  the  authority  of,  or  the 
reverence  due  to,  anything  which  is  not  explicable  to  the 
contemporary  reason.  It  destroys  all  standards  save 
those  of  its  own  time  and  its  own  creation.  It  is  the 
declared  enemy  of  humble  faith.  It  will  not  take  for 
granted  even  the  most  sacred  intuitions  of  the  human 
soul.  It  is  incompatible  with  earnest  moral  endeavour. 
In  nearly  all  its  aspects  it  is  destructive  and  negative. 

Such,  he  tells  me,  were  the  thoughts  thrown  up  by  the 


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ocean  under  the  stern  cliffs  of  Sark — thoughts  no  less 
numerous,  troubled  and  jumbled  than  the  waves  of  that 
disordered  sea. 

The  battle,  of  course,  was  only  half  fought.  He  was 
left  merely  with  the  ruins  of  a  boy’s  faith  in  philosophy 
as  a  breakwater  against  humanity’s  sea  of  troubles. 

“It  is  the  prerogative  of  youth,  I  suppose,”  he  wrote 
to  me  of  that  time,  “to  rail  against  things  as  they  are, 
and  in  those  days  I  shared  keenly  in  that  dissatisfaction, 
and  included  myself  among  the  least  satisfactory 
phenomena.  The  failure  of  materialism  came  to  me  as  a 
profound  conviction ;  and,  against  that,  the  necessity 
to  make  use  of  spiritual  force.  It  became  clear  that  the 
only  ultimate  significance  in  life  was  genuine  moral 
effort.  I  suppose  the  appeal  came  most  directly  as  a 
question  of  the  general  welfare  and  happiness  of  people. 
They  themselves  had  failed  to  promote  their  own  welfare. 
What  must  be  done?” 

A  little  later  he  was  able  to  say:  “Even  the  most 
superficial  study  of  the  Christian  religion  was  enough 
to  show  me  that  in  the  sophisticated  atmosphere  of 
modern  times,  in  a  welter  of  sex  psychology  and  nec¬ 
romancy  of  nearly  every  kind,  an  age  of  few  restraints 
and  no  reverences,  an  age  with  no  holy  of  holies  for  ‘the 
unsanctified  curiosities  of  common  men,’  the  simple  ethic 
of  Jesus  would  work  a  healthy  change.  Honesty  in 
commerce,  sincerity  in  the  Church,  sympathy  between 
employer  and  employed,  purity  and  decency  in  social 
life,  idealism  and  earnestness  in  political  life — what  a 
change  would  such  things  effect !  Pari  passu  with  these 
things  came  the  challenge  of  one’s  own  conscience — the 
searching  thought  of  one’s  own  personal  moralitv.  I 


BEAU  IDEAL 


111 


heard  a  friend  say  of  Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby,  ‘He  was  old 
fashioned ;  he  believed  in  God.’  That  set  me  thinking.  I 
thought  to  myself,  How  much  better  it  would  be  for  the 
world  if  more  people  believed  in  God.  I  got  so  far  as 
to  acknowledge  that  for  myself,  if  I  were  not  to  be  dis¬ 
loyal  to  conscience,  it  was  essential  for  me  to  believe  in 
God.” 

Thus  matters  stood  with  him  when  he  was  invited  to 
the  house  party  at  Cambridge  of  which  mention  has 
been  made  in  the  chapter  called  “A  Rugger  Blue.”  De¬ 
sire  to  see  more  of  F.  B.,  a  feeling  in  his  own  mind  that 
something  more  was  yet  demanded  of  him  than  an  intel¬ 
lectual  acknowledgment  of  the  ethical  value  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  made  him  accept  this  invitation. 

He  says  that  he  learned  during  those  wonderful  days 
in  Cambridge  the  way  of  believing  in  God.  The  word 
spiritual  as  applied  to  a  human  being,  he  came  to  see, 
implied  a  person  through  whom  the  divine  spirit  could 
work.  He  began  from  that  point  to  understand  what 
he  calls  “the  intimate  working  of  the  philosophy  of 
Jesus.”  Before  he  could  reasonably  hope  to  be  in  some 
communion  with  the  divine  spirit,  manifestly  he  must 
attune  his  moral  being  to  that  celestial  tone.  His  par¬ 
ticular  need,  he  felt,  was  for  honesty,  first  with  himself 
and  then  with  others ;  a  genuine  willingness  to  share 
burdens  and  difficulties ;  a  disposition  to  pray  readily 
and  continually,  out  of  a  sense  of  great  need  and  in¬ 
expressible  unworthiness ;  an  increasing  consideration  for 
the  feelings  of  other  people,  taking  into  account  their 
desires,  their  needs,  and  their  limitations ;  finally,  a  com¬ 
plete  submission  of  himself  to  the  supreme  ideal  of  hu¬ 
man  life,  Christ  Jesus,  with  an  instant  and  rejoicing 


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readiness  to  make  any  sacrifice  of  himself  and  his  for¬ 
tunes  at  the  call  of  the  least  of  those  whom  he  could  help. 

There  came  a  moment  at  that  house  party  when  he 
made  this  submission  of  his  will  to  the  Will  of  God, 
when  he  decided  that  henceforth  he  would  live  in  abso¬ 
lute  singleness  of  mind,  with  no  thought  of  self,  with 
everything  he  had  or  possessed  at  the  service  of  his  Mas¬ 
ter,  his  soul  hungering  and  thirsting  for  the  perfection 
of  God. 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  me,  written  before  an  even 
greater  experience  of  spiritual  power,  he  said:  “There 
is  much  more  I  might  say,  but  this  will  be  enough  just 
now.  At  every  point  we  are  called  upon  for  sober  think¬ 
ing,  and  for  discipline  and  for  earnestness.  The  fur¬ 
ther  I  go  the  more  profoundly  am  I  impressed  with  the 
significance  of  simplicity.  All  the  greatest  ideas  and 
truths  in  the  world  are  simple.  The  Bible  is  simple. 
The  highest  prayer  one  can  make  or  know  of  is  the  sim¬ 
plest  of  all.  The  issues  of  morality  are  simple — purity, 
honesty,  sincerity,  discipline.  Jesus  led  a  simple  life  in 
a  humble  station.  The  argument  ex  contrarie  (i.e.  that 
that  which  is  not  simple  is  probably  unsound)  applies 
forcibly  to  ever  so  many  things,  e.g.  philosophy,  if  not 
to  everything.  Comparisons  are  odious,  but  we  learn 
in  time  to  rely  on  some  ultimate  criterion.” 

Since  those  words  were  written  he  has  paid  a  visit 
to  the  United  States  in  company  with  F.  B.,  and  from 
F.  B.  and  others  I  learn  that  he  has  exercised  a  very 
powerful  influence  among  American  undergraduates.  I 
do  not  wonder,  for  he  is  a  singularly  taking  person. 
Moreover,  his  spiritual  growth  is  visible  to  the  eyes  of 


BEAU  IDEAL 


113 


all  his  friends.  One  of  them  described  to  me  that  growth 
as  “tremendous,”  adding  that  Beau  Ideal  had  gone  in 
for  “a  most  severe  self-discipline,”  that  he  had  “abso¬ 
lutely  given  up  no  end  of  things,”  that  he  was  now 
“completely  in  the  saddle,”  and  that  he  allows  “nothing 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  helping  other  men.”  All  this  I 
can  well  believe.  The  fire  was  there  from  the  first.  Such 
men,  however  long  they  may  hold  back  from  the  dread¬ 
ful  moment  of  an  absolute  decision,  will  go  to  the  utter¬ 
most  extreme  of  self-sacrifice  when  once  they  have 
escaped  from  the  former  things  of  their  tyranny. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  the 
intellectual  characteristics  of  his  faith.  He  finds  no 
difficulty  in  thinking  of  Jesus  as  “the  propitiation  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  world.”  He  finds  the  greatest  help 
in  thinking  of  Jesus  as  the  one  power  by  whom  men 
come  to  God  and  as  the  one  being  before  whom  we  could 
not  do  a  shameful  act.  He  is  convinced  that  the  Bible 
and  prayer  are  essential  to  spiritual  life.  In  his  last 
letter  written  from  America  he  tells  me  that  he  is  enter¬ 
ing  with  others  into  “A  First  Century  Christian  Fellow¬ 
ship,”  explaining  that  they  wish  to  get  back  to  the  type 
of  Christianity  which  was  maintained  by  the  Apostles — 
“We  not  only  accept  their  beliefs,  but  are  also  decided 
to  practice  their  methods.” 

He  announces  in  detail  the  elemental  beliefs  of  a  First 
Century  Christianity.  He  believes  in: 

The  possibility  of  immediate  and  continued  fellowship 
with  the  Holy  Spirit — guidance. 

The  proclamation  of  a  redemptive  gospel — personal, 
social,  and  national  salvation. 


114  MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 

The  possession  of  fullness  of  life — rebirth ,  and  an  ever- 
increasing  power  and  wisdom. 

The  propagation  of  their  life  by  individuals  to  individuals 
— personal  religion. 

Out  of  these  beliefs  proceeds  the  method  of  propaga¬ 
tion: 

Love  for  the  sinner. 

Hatred  of  the  sin. 

Fearless  dealing  with  sin. 

The  presentation  of  Christ  as  the  cure  for  sin. 

The  sharing  and  giving  of  self,  with  and  for  others. 

“We  are  more  concerned,”  he  writes,  “with  testifying 
to  real  experiences,  explicable  only  on  the  hypothesis 
that  God’s  power  has  brought  them  to  pass,  through 
Christ,  than  with  teaching  an  abstract  ethical  doctrine.” 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  a  tendency  in 
his  mind  not  only  to  make  large  assumptions  (that  is 
characteristic  of  all  practical  people),  but  also  perhaps 
to  regard  obstinate  credulity  as  a  virtue.  He  seems 
ready  to  take  over  from  one  particular  version  of  the 
First  Century  any  phrase  or  idea  which  that  version 
associates  with  the  apostles — not  to  take  it  over  as 
poetry,  or  as  an  attempt  of  the  Eastern  mind  to  utter 
inexpressible  mystery  in  the  language  of  metaphor,  but 
as  an  axiom  in  a  mathematical  system  of  thought. 

I  remember  that  in  one  of  his  former  letters,  speaking 
of  the  commending  simplicity  of  the  Christian  religion, 
he  remarks  that  the  question  of  Jesus,  What  think  ye  of 
Christ?  is  simplicity  itself.  One  is  obliged  to  say  that  it 
is  quite  impossible  for  a  man  who  has  made  even  a  cur- 


BEAU  IDEAL 


115 


sory  study  of  the  documents  to  believe  that  Jesus  ever 
asked  such  a  question;  certainly  it  was  never  asked  in 
that  form.  The  word  Christ  was  not  known  to  Jesus, 
and  was  never  applied  by  the  Greeks  to  any  human 
being  until  after  His  death.  Again,  it  is  a  solitary 
question,  remote  from  the  whole  character  of  the  life  of 
Jesus ;  a  life,  we  may  surely  say,  which  never  wasted  a 
moment  in  metaphysical  speculation.  Not  what  a  man 
thought  about  Him  was  the  preoccupation  of  Jesus,  but 
whether  that  man  was  doing  the  Will  of  God.  “Suffer 
little  children  to  come  unto  Me,  and  forbid  them  not; 
for  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.” 

The  danger  of  enthusiasm  in  religion  is  a  very  definite 
record  of  history;  but  if  we  go  more  deeply  into  that 
matter  we  shall  surely  find  that  this  danger  was  only 
great  and  perilous  to  the  progress  of  civilisation  when  it 
took  the  form  of  enthusiasm  for  a  particular  answer 
to  the  question,  What  think  ye  of  Christ? 

Enthusiasm  for  love,  modesty,  unselfish  service,  moral 
discipline,  and  spiritual  excellence,  and  the  character 
of  Jesus,  has  contributed  to  the  progress  of  civilisation 
nothing  but  good.  A  movement  of  personal  religion  in 
our  own  time  may  render  priceless  service  to  that  diffi¬ 
cult  progress,  and  to  all  the  most  enduring  of  human 
interests ;  but  one  must  doubt  whether  such  a  movement 
can  ever  emerge  into  the  main  current  of  existence  if 
its  little  streams  are  dammed  by  theological  tests. 

I  feel  about  Beau  Ideal  and  those  with  whom  he  now 
appears  to  be  associating  himself  that  in  their  enthu¬ 
siasm  for  the  liberation  and  power  of  spiritual  life  they 
are  somewhat  dangerously  disposed  to  regard  theologi- 


116 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


cal  objections  to  the  Catholic  religion  as  sins  against 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  to  confuse  an  unquestioning  credu¬ 
lity  with  the  beautiful  and  ineffable  virtue  of  aspiring 
faith. 

It  is  natural,  of  course,  for  an  impetuous  and  grateful 
mind,  which  has  suffered  sharply  in  the  furnace  of  temp¬ 
tation,  to  regard  with  immeasurable  gratitude  the  per¬ 
son  who  has  opened  to  it  the  door  of  escape ;  but  upon 
each  of  us,  surely,  is  laid  the  obligation  most  seriously 
to  ask  himself  whether  one  can  ever  be  morally  justi¬ 
fied  in  taking  over  from  another  man,  merely  because  he 
has  helped  us,  a  dogmatic  theology  (which  we  propose 
henceforth  to  make  a  religious  test  for  those  we  would 
attempt  to  help)  without  a  personal  and  very  conscien¬ 
tious  scrutiny. 


CHAPTER  VII 


PRINCETON 

'  |  ^HIS  narrative  illustrates  one  of  those  curious  para- 
doxes  which  sooner  or  later  confront  every  his¬ 
torian  of  religion  who  attempts  to  lay  down  hard  and 
fast  rules  for  spiritual  experience. 

It  is  the  story  of  a  changed  life  with  no  red-letter 
day  in  its  calendar.  One  finds  no  moment  in  its  progress 
where  a  definite  break  was  made  consciously  with  the 
past.  It  tells  of  no  crisis  of  emotion  setting  a  term  to 
illusion  and  opening  the  gates  to  illumination.  It  is  as 
true  a  document  of  conversion  as  any  to  be  found  in  the 
pages  of  The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience ,  and  yet 
it  seems  to  question  the  familiar  saying  of  William 
James  that  “the  crisis  of  self-surrender  has  always  been, 
and  must  always  be,  regarded  as  the  vital  turning-point 
of  the  religious  life.” 

Perhaps  such  a  story  may  be  helpful  and  encourag¬ 
ing  to  those  who  have  grown  in  spiritual  happiness  just 
as  they  have  grown  in  intellectual  happiness ;  it  will  not, 
I  hope,  minister  in  any  way  to  the  moral  indecision  of 
those  who,  needing  it  so  conspicuously,  shrink  from  the 
apparent  ordeal  of  self-surrender.  For  the  majority  of 
men,  one  suspects,  the  crisis  is  essential. 

Until  he  was  twenty  years  of  age  this  agreeable 
American,  who  is  now  only  twenty-five,  made  no  acquaint- 

117 


118 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


ance  with  dogmatic  theology.  He  grew  up  in  a  home 
which  took  religion  for  granted.  His  father,  a  man  of 
wealth,  was  firmly  religious  in  the  moral  sense  of  that 
word ;  a  lawyer,  and  a  prominent  citizen  of  his  state,  he 
stood  for  “clean  politics,”  for  honest  dealing  in  trade, 
and  for  the  domestic  virtues  in  family  life.  Both  from 
this  father  and  from  his  mother,  who  was  also  strongly 
religious  in  an  ethical  manner,  the  boy  learned  to  regard 
a  lie  as  cowardly  and  shameful,  and  to  feel  that  there 
was  something  superior  and  honourable  in  straightfor¬ 
wardness.  The  other  member  of  the  family  was  a  sister, 
a  little  older  than  himself,  very  charming  and  sympa¬ 
thetic,  of  a  natural  refinement,  and  with  an  inclination 
to  the  deeper  things  of  religious  life. 

The  family  was  exclusive  to  an  extreme  degree.  This 
exclusiveness  was  not  dictated  by  social  considerations, 
but  by  a  love  of  privacy  and  quiet.  The  father  was 
a  cultivated  man  with  a  fine  library.  He  loved  reading, 
and  found  his  chief  intellectual  happiness  in  history  and 
biography.  He  encouraged  his  son  to  read  the  best 
order  of  books.  “Never  read  trash,”  was  one  of  his  con¬ 
stant  injunctions.  He  conveyed  the  impression  that 
the  mind  could  be  soiled  by  contact  with  the  second-rate. 

There  was  no  feeling  for  art  in  the  family.  Music 
had  no  place  in  it ;  painting  awoke  no  interest.  The 
happiness  of  the  household  was  complete,  and  felt  no 
need  for  these  things.  Discussion  never  occurred  at  the 
table.  The  mind  of  the  family  was  agreed  upon  every¬ 
thing.  Occasionally  the  father  would  speak  with  con¬ 
tempt  of  a  shady  politician,  or  express  himself  strongly 
on  the  behaviour  of  a  statesman  or  a  newspaper ;  but  there 
was  never  anything  in  the  nature  of  debate  or  discussion. 

The  son  was  sent  to  a  Quaker  school  because  it  was 


PRINCETON 


119 


the  best  in  the  town.  Perhaps  he  acquired  at  that  school 
something  of  the  Quaker  spirit.  One  sees  in  his  hand¬ 
some  face  a  certain  austerity  of  the  spirit,  and  feels  in 
his  manner  an  almost  preternatural  gravity  of  mind. 
He  is  extraordinarily  self-possessed,  but  without  the 
least  trace — on  the  contrary,  indeed — of  self-satisfac¬ 
tion  or  loudness  of  mind.  The  voice  is  low,  the  dark  eyes 
are  solemn,  the  expression  of  the  face  is  impassive.  He 
makes  much  the  same  impression  on  one,  even  in  full 
daylight,  as  is  made  by  a  stranger  speaking  from  the 
shadows  of  a  large  and  curtained  room  which  is  lighted 
by  a  sleeping  fire.  It  is  as  if  he  dwells  far  back  in  the 
recesses  of  his  mind,  so  far  back,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
world  can  never  steal  his  quiet  or  soil  his  peace. 

At  seventeen  years  of  age  he  proceeded  to  Princeton 
University.  There  was  no  shock  of  any  kind  in  this  first 
acquaintance  with  the  world.  He  was  happy  in  making 
a  friend  of  Richard  Cleveland,  son  of  President  Cleve¬ 
land,  for  this  Richard  was  a  social  reformer  very  un¬ 
likely  to  get  into  wrong  sets.  The  two  young  men  re¬ 
garded  one  aspect  of  Varsity  life  with  great  contempt. 
There  are  no  colleges  in  Princeton;  only  dormitories. 
In  order  to  get  something  of  the  feeling  of  college  life, 
the  undergraduates  form  clubs,  chiefly  for  eating  pur¬ 
poses,  and  these  clubs  divide  themselves  into  clubs  with 
luxurious  buildings,  suitable  for  the  rich  and  the  dis¬ 
tinguished,  and  hugger-mugger  clubs,  suitable  for  the 
poor  student. 

Richard  Cleveland  and  the  man  of  whom  I  am  writing 
regarded  this  state  of  things  as  vulgar  and  bad.  Such 
a  division,  they  said,  set  up  false  standards.  The  busi¬ 
ness  of  a  University  is  to  mix  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 


no 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


men  together ;  to  unify,  not  to  divide ;  certainly  not  to 
exalt  wealth  as  something  higher  than  genius  or  poverty. 
Moreover,  a  certain  amount  of  drinking  and  gambling 
went  on  in  the  luxurious  clubs ;  the  moral  influence  was 
decidedly  not  good.  Of  one  mind  on  this  subject,  and 
being  prominent  men  in  that  year,  they  opposed  them¬ 
selves  to  the  tradition.  Out  of  a  class  of  three  hundred, 
they  enlisted  a  hundred  men  who  pledged  themselves  not 
to  join  the  expensive  and  aristocratic  clubs. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  this  social  activity 
created  in  the  mind  of  our  austere  undergraduate  a  desire 
for  public  life.  It  is  important  to  know  that  he  re¬ 
mained  aloof  from  personal  friendships,  and  wTas  inti¬ 
mate  with  no  one.  His  influence  was  felt  in  the  Univer¬ 
sity  with  no  exertion  on  his  part.  He  found  himself 
elected  to  offices  he  had  never  sought;  before  he  quite 
realised  what  had  happened  he  discovered  himself  in  a 
position  of  some  moral  responsibility.  Still,  he  remained 
the  quiet,  serious,  self-contained,  and  reserved  student, 
making  no  friends,  seeking  no  acquaintances,  inviting  no 
confidences. 

On  his  vacations  he  listened  to  his  sister’s  account 
of  religious  activity  at  the  college  in  which  she  was  dis¬ 
tinguishing  herself.  He  was  interested,  felt  that  it  was 
the  right  thing  for  her  to  be  interested  in  such  work,  but 
there  the  matter  ended. 

When  he  returned  to  Princeton,  he  found  himself  di¬ 
recting  a  movement  half  social  and  half  religious — a 
movement  to  get  University  men  interested  in  boys’  clubs 
and  summer  camps.  At  one  of  these  summer  camps  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  bright  and  intelligent  news- 


PRINCETON 


121 

boy,  who  began  to  talk:  to  him  more  and  more  seriously 
about  religion,  until  one  day  he  suddenly  blurted  out 
a  confession  and  asked  his  rich  young  friend  for  advice. 
The  undergraduate  recommended  cold  baths,  no  loung¬ 
ing  about,  brisk  habits  of  mind  and  body.  Some  months 
afterwards  the  boy  drew  him  on  one  side,  and  said  that 
this  plan  did  not  work,  asking  if  there  was  nothing  else 
to  be  tried. 

The  fact  that  he  really  had  nothing  else  to  advise 
rather  preyed  on  the  undergraduate’s  mind.  He  began 
to  pay  some  attention  to  the  question  of  personal  re¬ 
ligion.  He  heard  about  the  work  which  F.  B.  was  doing 
in  some  of  the  Universities.  Then  he  met  F.  B.  and  was 
invited  to  attend  a  little  Retreat  of  men  interested  in 
personal  religion.  He  was  disappointed  at  first  in  F.  B. 
A  temperamental  reticence  held  him  back  for  some  time 
from  joining  this  Retreat.  But  in  the  end  he  was  per¬ 
suaded  to  go,  and  he  went  with  a  thoroughly  uncom¬ 
fortable  feeling,  convinced  that  he  would  be  a  fish  out 
of  water. 

He  said  to  me,  “I  have  never  had  any  moral  struggle. 
I  have  never  been  aware  of  any  problems  in  myself.  I 
could  always  get  along  without  outside  help.  Religion 
only  interested  me  when  I  came  to  see  how  madly  other 
men  needed  it  to  save  themselves  from  going  on  the 
rocks.  I  learned  as  I  went  along  that  there  are  such 
things  as  temptations.  Happily  for  me,  I  was  alto¬ 
gether  unaware  of  such  temptations ;  my  tastes,  my 
temperament,  my  home-life,  made  certain  things  ugly 
and  dislikable  to  me;  but  other  men,  I  discovered,  did 
not  see  those  things  in  the  same  light.  Among  the  men 
who  went  to  F.  B.’s  Retreat  were  some  whom  I  knew 


122 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


fairly  well,  and  knew  to  be  doing  no  good.  I  saw  these 
men  changed.  It  was  the  sudden  and  complete  change  in 
these  men,  under  F.  B.’s  influence,  wrhich  made  an  effect 
upon  my  mind.  It  was  impossible  not  to  be  impressed. 
I  never  tackled  anyone  myself,  and  nobody  tackled  me; 
but  I  saw  something  of  this  tackling,  and  I  saw  quite 
clearly  its  extraordinary  effect.  Still  I  felt  reluctant  to 
take  up  any  work  of  that  nature.  It  was  good  for  other 
men,  but  not  for  me.  I  had  no  bias  that  way,  no  gift  for 
such  work.  My  whole  temperament  was  opposed  to  it.” 

Soon  after  this  a  youngish  man  came  to  the  Univer¬ 
sity  as  Secretary  of  the  Christian  Association.  He  had 
been  changed  by  F.  B.  He  talked  to  my  friend,  told  him 
that  he  too  had  been  just  as  repelled  by  F.  B.,  and  then 
proceeded  to  relate  what  F.  B.  had  done  for  him.  The 
happiness  of  this  man,  the  tremendous  drive  of  his  per¬ 
sonality,  his  reality,  his  conviction  that  men  could  be 
saved  from  sin  by  no  other  method,  made  a  marked  im¬ 
pression  on  my  friend’s  mind. 

Still,  no  decision  was  taken. 

A  little  later  there  were  religious  conferences.  F. 
B.’s  spirit,  he  says,  had  prepared  their  atmosphere.  It 
was  a  friendly,  hopeful,  and  perfectly  natural  atmos¬ 
phere.  The  absence  of  anything  official  or  sacerdotal 
struck  him  agreeably.  Men  of  all  sorts  were  there — 
scholars  and  athletes — and  all  of  them  talked  in  their 
natural  voices,  wore  ordinary  clothes,  and  behaved  as  if 
they  were  debating  a  political  question.  He  found  him¬ 
self  growing  more  and  more  convinced  that  F.  B.  was 
right.  He  had  no  personal  interview.  He  was  simply 
one  of  a  group.  F.  B.’s  remarks  were  made  to  the  whole 
group,  never  to  him  in  particular.  But  gradually,  pro¬ 
foundly,  imperceptibly,  the  change  was  taking  place. 


PRINCETON 


123 


Day  by  day  he  became  more  certain.  Day  by  day  he 
saw  what  he  was  going  to  do.  There  was  no  crisis ;  no 
moment  in  which  he  decided;  no  moment  in  which  re¬ 
ligion  suddenly  became  real.  Everything  in  the  old 
life  shaded  off  into  the  new  life  forming  within  him. 
God  did  not  suddenly  cease  to  be  a  name  and  suddenly 
become  a  Person.  It  was  all  like  the  coming  of  a  dawn 
— a  gradual  emergence  from  darkness  to  twilight,  from 
twilight  to  day. 

But  the  daylight  was  there,  and  he  saw  visibly  what 
was  before  him.  An  only  son,  very  expensively  educated, 
who  goes  to  a  proud  father  and  announces  that  he  wishes 
to  devote  his  life  to  the  poverty  and  service  of  religion 
cannot  be  sure  of  congratulation.  But  this  announce¬ 
ment  had  to  be  made.  So  great  now  was  the  gradual 
and  imperceptible  change  in  his  soul  that  he  could  con¬ 
template  no  other  life.  To  give  all  he  possessed  to  the 
work  of  helping  men  was  now  his  destiny. 

“There  was  no  real  opposition  in  my  family,”  he  told 
me.  “My  sister  was  back  in  the  home,  engaged  in  re¬ 
ligious  work,  and  the  atmosphere  was  perhaps  changed 
by  her  work.  In  any  case,  my  father  was  extremely  kind 
and  understanding.  My  mother  expressed  a  strong  feel¬ 
ing  that  the  step  I  contemplated  might  not  be  wise,  but 
she  was  quite  affectionate.  Everything  seemed  to  be 
made  easy  for  me.  I  took  up  the  work,  and  I  am  hap¬ 
pier  than  I  have  ever  been  before.  It  has  opened  to  me  a 
door  to  one  of  the  greatest  things  in  life — friendship.” 

He  spoke  of  this  great  thing  with  his  usual  self-mas¬ 
tery,  and  yet  it  was  impossible  not  to  realise  an  enthu¬ 
siasm  in  the  measured  words.  He  had  no  glowing 
language  for  the  mystical  experiences  of  the  religious  life, 
and  no  glowing  words  either  for  the  wonderful  delight 


124 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


of  human  friendship;  but  he  spoke  of  this  high  human 
pleasure  with  a  certain  ring  in  his  voice  which  I  never 
caught  when  he  was  speaking  of  other  subjects. 

He  said,  “I  had  no  idea  that  friendship  was  such  a 
beautiful  thing.  I  came  late  to  it,  because  our  family 
kept  so  much  to  itself,  and  because  by  nature  I  was  very 
reserved  as  a  boy.  We  never  seemed  to  meet  other 
people.  Certainly  I  never  played  with  other  children. 
I  met  boys  of  my  own  age  at  school,  but  only  at  school; 
they  never  came  back  to  our  house.  I  never  knew  them. 
In  a  sense  I  had  never  known  anybody  at  all.  But  this 
work  of  personal  religion  brings  friendship  into  a  man’s 
life  in  its  highest  conceivable  form.  I  am  now  so  rich  in 
friends  that  I  smile  when  people  speak  to  me  of  the  self- 
sacrifice  in  religion.  The  life  a  man  lays  down  in  this 
matter  is  not  a  very  desirable  thing.  The  life  he  takes 
up  again  is  full  of  the  deepest  possible  happiness.  One 
finds  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  help  another  man  until 
one  really  cares  for  him,  and  directly  one  cares  for  an¬ 
other  man  not  only  is  it  easy  to  help  him,  but  you  get 
this  most  beautiful  thing  of  friendship — friendship  that 
counts  no  cost  in  its  longing  to  be  of  service.  I  doubt 
if  many  people  who  live  entirely  without  religion  have 
any  idea  of  what  friendship  is — true  human  friendship.” 

He  makes  one  think  of  Bacon’s  great  saying,  “no  man 
that  imparteth  his  joys  to  his  friend,  but  he  joyeth  the 
more;  and  no  man  that  imparteth  his  griefs  to  his  friend, 
but  he  grieveth  the  less.” 

This  work  has  not  only  brought  him  a  pleasure  of 
which  he  had  no  experience,  but  a  new  knowledge  of 
which  he  had  never  dreamed. 


PRINCETON 


125 


“I  am  astounded,”  he  said  to  me,  “by  the  moral  chaos 
in  men’s  lives.  Difficulties  about  which  I  knew  nothing 
present  themselves  now  at  every  turn.  Sin,  I  discover, 
plays  an  unimaginably  great  part  in  human  life.  Men 
who  might  be  of  service  to  a  nation,  and  who  might 
enjoy  peace  of  mind  and  a  life  of  the  highest  happiness, 
are  frustrated  by  inclinations  which  they  find  themselves 
powerless  to  resist,  even  when  they  see  clearly  that  they 
are  disastrous.  I  used  to  think  that  a  man  went  to  the 
bad  because  he  liked  going  to  the  bad.  It  always  seemed 
to  me  that  men  who  did  things  which  most  decent  men 
regard  as  unworthy  or  even  contemptible,  did  those 
things  because  they  found  pleasure  in  them.  Now  I 
know  that  many  of  these  men,  at  any  rate  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  their  careers,  do  these  things  against  their  own 
judgment,  even  against  their  own  will.  Something  with¬ 
in  them  drives  them  on.  They  are  suddenly  attacked  by 
irresistible  power.  They  describe  themselves  as  being 
forced,  driven,  or  hurled  into  ways  which  they  hate.  All 
this  was  at  one  time  quite  unintelligible  to  me.  I  never 
realised  that  there  is  a  struggle  in  the  soul.  Now  I 
know  that  any  man  whose  personality  is  divided  must 
always  live  at  the  sport  of  treacherous  inclinations.” 

He  also  said  to  me:  “I  do  not  at  all  think  that  sex 
difficulties  are  the  chief  battle-ground  of  youth.  I  re¬ 
gard  those  difficulties  as  much  the  same  as  lethargy, 
pride,  idleness,  coldness,  meanness,  selfishness.  It  is  even 
harder  sometimes  to  break  down  a  man’s  conceit  or 
selfishness  than  to  strengthen  another  man  against 
sensual  weakness.  All  sin  has  its  roots  in  selfishness.  \ 
Chaos  is  inseparable  from  selfishness.” 

He  spoke  to  me  also  of  his  view  concerning  the  future 
of  religion  in  the  struggle  of  man’s  soul. 


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“I  have  learned,”  he  said,  “from  this  work  of  personal 
religion  to  distrust  organisation  and  to  see  a  quite  extra¬ 
ordinary  power  in  the  leaven  of  personality.  No  doubt 
organisation  of  some  kind  will  long  continue,  and  will 
be  useful ;  but  I  feel  confident  that  the  future  belongs 
to  personal  religion,  by  which  I  mean  the  unofficial, 
the  unprofessional,  and  the  uninstitutional  influence 
of  one  man  on  another.  I  am  quite  sure  human¬ 
ity  must  be  saved  man  by  man,  not  in  droves  and  herds. 
I  doubt  if  anyone  can  profoundly  help  another  until  he 
cares  for  him  as  a  friend.  And  until  intercourse  is  abso¬ 
lutely  intimate  how  can  one  soul  understand  another 
soul — understand  it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  render 
help  ?” 

He  told  me  of  the  change  which  is  now  going  on  in 
the  Universities  of  America.  There  is  a  new  seriousness 
among  undergraduates,  an  increasing  sense  of  responsi¬ 
bility,  a  visible  movement  towards  spiritual  life.  All 
this  is  entirely  due  to  personal  religion.  It  is  the  work 
of  a  few  men  like  F.  B.  It  has  received  no  impetus  from 
official  quarters.  Swiftly,  as  if  some  mysterious  power 
were  at  work,  the  spirit  spreads  from  University  to 
University,  and  religion  becomes  a  real  thing,  a  thing  of 
infinite  moment  to  the  individual,  of  enormous  impor¬ 
tance  to  the  future  of  the  human  race. 

Directly,  he  says,  a  man  feels  that  religion  is  a  real 
power  in  human  life,  not  merely  a  subject  for  theologi¬ 
cal  discussion,  he  becomes  interested  in  it.  And  directly 
he  discovers  that  it  can  work  a  miracle  in  his  own  soul 
he  seeks  to  understand  it.  A  few  men  with  this  wonder¬ 
ful  leaven  of  personality  could  change  the  world. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
A  YOUNG  SOLDIER 

A"\NE  of  the  guests  at  the  house-party  to  which  I  re- 
^  ferred  in  my  introduction  was  pointed  out  to  me  as 
a  man  who  had  distinguished  himself  in  the  war  by  nota¬ 
ble  courage.  He  looked  a  mere  boy — one  of  those  fresh¬ 
skinned,  fair-haired,  urchin-like  striplings  whose  faces 
flush  with  a  grinning  self-consciousness  when  they  find 
themselves  objects  of  observation. 

He  was  tall  and  slight,  with  an  inclination  to  stoop  his 
head.  But  for  the  sadness  of  his  voice,  which  is  rather 
deep  in  note,  and  the  gravity  of  his  words  in  discussion, 
one  would  think  of  him  as  a  sly  schoolboy  always  on  the 
alert  to  pull  somebody’s  leg  or  to  work  off  a  pun.  So 
much  suppressed  laughter,  so  much  restrained  gaiety, 
so  much  controlled  roguishness,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  in  the  face  of  the  most  frivolous-minded  tormentor 
of  a  schoolmaster.  It  was  difficult  for  me  to  think  of 
this  jolly-looking  youth  as  a  soldier;  more  difficult  to 
believe  that  he  had  passed  through  a  religious  crisis. 

He  told  me  that  his  father,  who  was  a  well-known  man 
in  English  public  life,  died  when  he  was  eight  years  of 
age.  “Yet,”  he  said,  “my  impression  of  him  is  quite 
clear;  his  personality  was  unforgettable.”  As  for  his 

127 


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MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


mother,  who  is  still  alive,  he  declared  that  she  is  a  mother 
beyond  all  praise. 

In  a  home  so  enviable  as  this,  with  one  brother  as  a 
companion,  M.  grew  up  to  boyhood,  not  merely  shielded 
from  all  coarse  influences  which  might  throw  miserable 
shadows  across  the  radiance  of  a  child’s  natural  inno¬ 
cence,  but  encouraged  to  find  his  highest  delight  in  occu¬ 
pations  wholesome  both  for  mind  and  body.  The  books 
he  read  were  calculated  to  develop  refinement  of  spirit ; 
the  games  he  played  were  calculated  to  develop  his  cour¬ 
age  and  his  muscles.  When  he  went  to  a  preparatory 
school  he  was  as  good  a  specimen  of  healthy,  hearty, 
clean-minded,  and  intelligent  English  boyhood  as  any 
father  could  wish  to  see. 

Unhappily  for  his  development,  there  was  a  master 
at  this  school  who  was  tormented  by  a  devil  of  lust,  and 
whose  evil  and  furtive  spirit  corrupted  the  whole  school. 
The  boy  learned  vice  at  the  hands  of  one  who  was  paid 
to  teach  him  virtue.  He  appears  to  have  slipped  into 
bad  habits,  as  so  many  small  boys  do,  with  no  apprehen¬ 
sion  at  all  of  their  consequences,  physical  or  moral. 
Nevertheless  he  was  not  without  knowledge  that  what  he 
did  was  wrong,  that  it  was  something  to  be  done  out  of 
sight,  that  it  was  an  act  of  which  he  felt  ashamed.  It 
was  with  a  feeling  of  relief  that  he  found  himself  in  a 
public  school,  where  the  moral  tone  was  healthier  and 
where  he  came  under  the  stimulating  influences  of  “some 
ripping  masters.” 

Dogged  by  the  vice  he  had  learned  at  his  first  school, 
M.  made  a  gallant  fight  for  his  self-respect,  and  gradu¬ 
ally  obtained  a  fair  mastery  over  dangerous  dispositions. 
He  did  well  in  games  and  well  in  school.  He  began  to 
enjoy  himself  with  the  happiness  of  one  who  feels  that 


A  YOUNG  SOLDIER 


129 


things  are  straightening  out,  that  the  path  before  him 
leads  to  success,  and  that  success  can  be  gained  with 
comparative  ease.  He  won  a  scholarship  for  Oxford, 
and  went  up  to  the  University  with  an  appetite  for  all 
the  best  things  which  life  offers  at  its  charming  threshold 
to  the  happiest  order  of  manhood — that  order  of  man¬ 
hood  which  finds  as  superlative  a  pleasure  in  the  acquisi¬ 
tion  of  knowledge  as  in  an  increasing  skill  in  difficult 
games. 

One  term  of  great  happiness  passed  away,  and  then 
came  the  European  war,  claiming  him  as  a  soldier  of 
England.  From  others  I  learn  that  he  rose  quickly  to 
the  rank  of  captain,  that  he  was  distinguished  through¬ 
out  his  service  for  an  unquailing  courage  and  a  singu¬ 
larly  gentle  regard  for  the  welfare  of  his  men,  and  that 
he  won  enviable  distinctions  in  the  great  Battle  of  the 
Somme,  falling  at  last  to  an  attack  of  poison-gas. 

When  he  recovered  from  this  rather  desperate  afflic¬ 
tion  he  was  sent  back  to  Oxford.  The  war  had  weak¬ 
ened  in  him  his  enthusiasm  for  scholarship,  and  had 
heightened  in  him  his  passion  for  games.  He  found  an 
extraordinary  delight  in  physical  fitness.  As  if  war 
had  whetted  his  appetite  for  danger,  he  loved  chiefly 
those  games  which  involved  risk  of  limb.  When  he  could 
not  play  such  games  he  rode  about  the  country  on  a 
motor-cycle,  loving  speed  for  itself  and  almost  seeking 
those  “narrow  squeaks”  which  make  the  elderly  specta¬ 
tor  hold  his  breath. 

It  was  in  the  rush  of  this  athletic  period,  when  his 
body  was  at  its  fittest  and  his  mind  freest  from  anxiety, 
that  sexual  trouble  began  once  more  to  invade.  But 
Oxford  provided  for  him  at  this  time  something  of  an 
aid  in  his  distress.  He  discovered  the  pleasure  of  friend- 


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ship.  There  were  rooms  in  which  he  was  always  wel¬ 
come;  there  were  delightful  men  always  willing  to  talk. 
Among  these  men  it  was  natural  to  discuss  religion,  and 
religion  came  back  to  his  mind,  consecrated  by  the  mem¬ 
ory  of  his  father,  and  sacred  with  the  thought  of  his 
mother,  to  help  him  in  the  loneliness  of  his  conflict.  But 
the  stir  of  sex  in  his  blood  was  not  to  be  stilled,  and 
though  he  might  again  and  again  overthrow  that  power¬ 
ful  motion  in  his  whole  being,  yet  the  thing  was  there, 
haunting  him,  irking  him,  gnawing  at  his  self-respect, 
shadowing  his  natural  happiness. 

In  one  of  his  discussions  with  a  friend  he  heard  for 
the  first  time  of  F.  B.,  and  was  curious  rather  than  in¬ 
terested  by  what  he  heard.  At  any  rate  he  made  no 
effort  to  see  F.  B,,  and  continued  to  fight  his  battle  in 
his  own  way.  Soon  after  this  he  was  badly  broken  in 
a  Rugger  smash,  and  was  carted  off  to  hospital  with 
more  injuries  to  his  bones  than  the  Great  War  had  been 
able  to  inflict. 

One  day,  lying  in  his  bed  at  this  hospital,  a  stranger 
came  to  see  him.  It  was  F.  B.  F.  B.  had  been  told  by 
one  of  M.’s  friends  that  there  was  a  man  in  hospital  who 
might  be  glad,  he  rather  thought,  to  have  a  talk  with 
him.  Accordingly  F.  B.,  brisk,  smiling,  and  quietly 
cheerful,  presented  himself  at  the  bedside  of  football’s 
victim. 

“He  made  no  impression  upon  me,”  said  M.,  “neither 
one  way  nor  the  other.  It  never  occurred  to  me  to  think 
of  him  as  an  out-of-the-way  sort  of  person.  He  seemed 
perfectly  natural,  not  particularly  interesting,  and  cer¬ 
tainly  not  in  the  least  striking.  But  after  he  had  left 
me  I  was  conscious  of  a  very  curious  feeling  about  him. 
I  wanted  to  see  him  again.  It  wasn’t  a  case  of  wanting 


A  YOUNG  SOLDIER 


131 


to  see  a  person  one  likes,  or  a  person  who  has  interested 
one  by  his  ideas,  but  wanting  to  see  a  man  who  had  made 
no  other  impression  except  this  curious  and  inexplicable 
impression  that  one  did  very  much  want  to  see  him 
again.” 

The  next  time  F.  B.  came  to  M.’s  bedside  he  made 
another  impression.  He  was  still  an  average  person, 
still  a  person  who  was  not  in  the  least  dramatic  or  even 
notable,  yet  he  left  behind  him  in  M.’s  mind  the  distinct 
sensation  that  he  could  help  him.  “I  couldn’t  explain  to 
myself  why  I  had  this  feeling,”  M.  told  me ;  “I  tried  to 
reason  the  thing  out,  but  couldn’t  see  the  ghost  of  an 
explanation.  We  had  said  nothing  of  a  serious  nature. 
There  was  no  sense  of  intimacy.  I  was  still  conscious  of 
his  difference  as  a  Yankee.  And  yet  there  it  was;  I 
could  not  shake  out  of  my  mind  the  notion  that  this  un¬ 
remarkable  man  could  help  me  to  straighten  things  out 
as  no  other  man  had  yet  done.” 

F.  B.’s  account  of  the  matter  is  as  follows:  “One  of 
his  friends  had  spoken  to  me  about  him.  He  mentioned 
no  trouble,  but  said  that  M.  was  a  man  he’d  like  me  to 
meet.  He  spoke  of  his  services  in  the  war,  told  me  about 
his  fame  as  a  Rugger  player,  said  he  was  altogether  a 
very  fine  fellow,  and  then  mentioned  that  he  was  lying 
in  the  hospital,  cracked  up  pretty  badly.  I  knew  I  had  to 
see  this  man.  I  knew,  too,  directly  I  saw  him  what  his 
trouble  was.  We  talked  of  just  ordinary  things.  I 
didn’t  bother  to  know  whether  he  liked  me  or  not ;  all 
I  knew  was  that  for  certain  he  would  one  day  ask  me 
to  help  him. 

“That  day  came.  He  didn’t  find  it  easy  to  tell  me  the 
whole  story.  He  got  as  far,  with  great  difficulty,  as 


132 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


telling  me  that  he  wasn’t  as  happy  as  he  wanted  to  be, 
and  that  he  thought  I  might  possibly  be  able  to  help 
him.  I  helped  him  right  there,  at  that  very  moment. 
I  helped  him  by  telling  him  what  his  trouble  was.  It 
hit  him  like  a  blow  from  a  hammer.  After  that  it  was 
easy  for  him,  easy  for  me,  easy  for  God.  He’s  one  of 
the  finest  fellows  living,  brave  as  a  lion,  yet  shy  as  a 
girl.  A  beautiful  nature — a  real  man  with  all  the  deli¬ 
cacy  of  a  woman. 

“Directly  the  trouble  was  out  in  the  open  he  really 
hated  it.  With  this  hatred  was  a  longing  for  all  that  a 
good  man  means  by  the  Name  of  God.  There  was  no 
wrestle,  no  struggle.  He  came  to  himself  in  a  moment. 
Already  he  has  done  remarkable  work,  and  when  he  has 
taken  his  degree  as  a  doctor  he  will  use  his  life  entirely 
for  God.” 

M.  tells  me  that  one  of  the  greatest  things  F.  B.  did 
for  him  was  freeing  his  mind  for  discussing  this  moral 
trouble  with  other  men.  An  enormous  change  came  into 
his  life  directly  the  sense  of  secret  shame  was  dissipated. 
The  evil  lost  its  power.  He  found  himself  possessed  of 
an  altogether  new  strength.  He  was  conscious  of  an 
altogether  new  liberty. 

To  complete  the  happiness  of  his  freedom  from  a 
noxious  obsession  he  found  that  he  could  help  other  men 
to  get  their  various  temptations  into  the  open,  and  that 
once  in  the  open  it  was  easy  for  them — most  of  them, 
at  any  rate — to  realise  the  need  for  hating  their  sins 
before  they  could  expect  answers  to  their  prayers. 

I  asked  him  to  tell  me  what  his  opinion  was  of  the 
morals  of  men  at  the  Universities.  He  replied  that,  so  far 
as  his  experience  went,  the  present  generation  of  young 


A  YOUNG  SOLDIER 


133 


men  is  a  healthy  one.  There  is  no  “smuttiness”  among 
them.  The  vast  majority  want  to  conquer  their  bad 
habits.  It  would  be  a  very  gross  perversion  of  the  truth 
to  think  of  these  young  men  as  accepting  vice  as  the 
natural  order  of  things.  They  don’t  narrate  their  ad¬ 
ventures.  They  don’t  compare  their  experiences.  They 
don’t  talk  about  these  matters ;  certainly  those  who  do 
don’t  talk  flippantly.  There  is  a  terrible  struggle  going 
on.  It  is  a  silent  struggle.  There  are  many  defeats  in 
that  struggle,  but  no  surrender  on  the  part  of  the  aver¬ 
age  man.  Sport  helps  them  more  than  orthodox  religion, 
for  orthodox  religion  seems  to  ignore  this  tremendous 
battlefield  of  youth;  at  any  rate,  it  has  nothing  to  offer 
which  is  recognised  by  the  fighters  as  a  help.  What  does 
help,  what  does  enable  most  men  to  get  the  victory,  is 
the  personal  religion  inculcated  by  F.  B.  And  there  is 
far  more  of  this  work  going  on  than  the  dons  know.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  friendship  of  University  life,  widening 
its  influence  with  every  term. 

One  of  the  stories  he  told  me,  very  modestly,  of  his 
own  efforts  to  help  other  men  is  well  worth  telling  here. 
In  none  of  these  stories  (need  I  assert  it  of  so  gallant 
and  gentle  a  man?)  was  there  the  least  suggestion  of 
exalting  his  own  power  over  other  lives.  His  sole  object 
in  telling  them  was  to  show  me  how  the  drive  of  sympa¬ 
thy  can  help  a  man  who  rather  shrinks  from  such  work 
to  change  the  lives  of  others.  His  great  contention  is 
that  F.  B.  has  discovered  for  him  the  central  truth  of 
spiritual  life,  the  pearl  of  great  price,  and  that  this 
truth  is  destined  to  save  the  soul  of  the  world.  He  is 
quite  sure  about  that.  The  soul  can  definitely  deal 
direct  with  God. 


134 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


Among  his  fellow  medical  students  he  came  across  a 
man  who  had  been  with  him  at  his  public  school.  They 
renewed  the  friendship  of  those  days,  found  that  they  had 
been  fighting  together  in  France  without  knowing  it, 
and  gradually  entered  into  an  intimate  relationship. 

This  friend  of  schooldays  told  M.  that  when  he  went 
out  to  France  he  was  engaged  to  be  married.  The  bru¬ 
tality  of  the  war  atmosphere,  with  its  manifold  depres¬ 
sions  and  its  inescapable  temptations,  preyed  upon  his 
moral  energy,  chafing  him,  but  could  not  impair  his 
loyalty  to  the  girl  in  England.  For  two  years  of  con¬ 
stant  danger  and  surrounding  bestiality  he  kept  faith 
with  idealism.  He  was  as  true  as  steel.  Then  he  re¬ 
turned  from  the  war  to  find  that  this  girl  had  formed 
another  attachment  and  wished  to  throw  him  over. 

In  the  bitterness  of  his  grief  and  the  irony  of  his  dis¬ 
illusion  he  went  to  the  dogs.  Alone  in  London,  hating 
his  solitude,  longing  for  sympathy,  and  tortured  by  the 
thought  that  he  had  been  true  to  a  woman  in  vain,  he 
sought  to  forget  his  troubles  in  the  society  of  harlots. 
Revulsion  overcame  him  after  every  one  of  these  visits,  a 
revulsion  bitter  as  gall,  but  again  and  again  he  went 
back,  driven  by  an  intolerable  sense  of  loneliness. 
“Many  men,”  he  told  M.,  “go  to  these  poor  girls  simply 
for  companionship.  They  are  the  kindest  people  in  Lon¬ 
don  to  the  friendless  man  eating  his  heart  out  in  lodg¬ 
ings.” 

The  manner  in  which  M.  has  been  able  to  help  this 
particular  person  is  simply  by  giving  him  a  sense  of 
loyalty  to  his  own  higher  nature  and  by  providing  him 
with  an  altogether  more  abiding  companionship.  But 
the  bitterness  of  the  man’s  heart  is  not  yet  wholly  gone, 
and  the  sense  of  the  divine  companionship  is  not  yet 


A  YOUNG  SOLDIER 


135 


firmly  established.  Still  is  he  overtaken  from  time  to 
time  by  an  unbearable  feeling  of  solitude  and  forlorn¬ 
ness  ;  but  now,  instead  of  seeking  a  cure  for  that  ill 
where  no  cure  is  to  be  found,  he  comes  to  M.,  and  to  M. 
confesses  his  feebleness.  “We  are  helping  each  other,” 
is  M.’s  account  of  the  matter. 

No  man  could  be  freer  than  M.  from  that  insufferable 
arrogance,  or  self-satisfaction,  which  disfigures  so 
many  people  who  feel  themselves  to  be  called  by  God  to 
the  service  of  converting  other  men.  He  speaks  with 
quiet  reverence,  but  an  extreme  diffidence,  of  his  belief 
that  his  power  to  help  other  men  is  increasing,  and  he 
looks  forward  to  the  day  when  as  a  doctor  in  some  for¬ 
eign  Christian  mission  he  may  be  able  to  exert  that 
power  with  far  greater  effect.  The  power  is  there.  He 
has  no  doubt  about  that.  The  ability  to  use  it  must  be 
determined  by  his  own  response  to  its  unaltering  condi¬ 
tions. 

He  seems  to  me  to  be  studying  the  laws  of  the  spiritual 
world  as  the  man  of  science  studies  the  laws  of  the  physi¬ 
cal  world.  He  is  rightly  making  experiments  with  his 
soul.  But  below  the  inquiring  mind  is  a  spirit  which 
believes  unquestionably  and  with  deep  gladness  in  the 
existence  of  a  God  who  is  desirous  of  communicating 
Himself  to  His  creature;  and  in  the  mind  itself,  that 
mind  which  inquires  and  investigates,  is  the  clear  know¬ 
ledge  that  hatred  of  sin,  and  a  clean  bill  from  all  forms 
of  selfishness,  must  go  before  that  craving  desire  for 
moral  wisdom  which  establishes  connection  with  the 
Eternal  Righteousness.  He  does  not  announce  himself 
as  a  discoverer,  but  he  is  certainly  a  traveller. 

The  moral  and  spiritual  differences  separating  such 


136 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


men  as  this  charming  young  person  from  the  offensive 
type  of  evangelical  who  went  about  in  the  eighties  ask¬ 
ing  everyone  whom  he  encountered,  “Are  you  saved?” 
seem  to  me  as  great  as  the  moral  and  spiritual  differ¬ 
ences  which  separate  the  writings  of  Plato  from  the 
writings  of  Ibsen,  or  the  life  of  John  Hampden  from  the 
life  of  Rousseau.  It  is  an  entirely  new  type.  It  is  a 
phenomenon  in  religious  experience.  With  all  the  earn¬ 
estness  and  unflinching  realism  of  the  older  type  of 
evangelicalism  there  is  a  delicacy,  a  modesty,  a  sweet¬ 
ness,  and  a  tolerance  in  this  new  protagonist  of  personal 
religion  which  renders  him,  I  think,  a  force  of  great 
hope  for  the  future. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  VIRGINIAN 

HERE,  to  wind  up  these  brief  narratives,  is  the  story  of 
a  blithe  and  hard-hitting  spirit  whose  blood  may 
well  have  descended  to  him  from  those  Englishmen,  “the 
flower  and  force  of  a  kingdom,”  as  Sir  John  Smyth  de¬ 
scribed  them  to  Lord  Burghley  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
who  then  fought  in  Flanders  and  who  “went  voluntary 
to  serve  of  a  gaiety  and  joyalty  of  mind.” 

The  vigour  of  the  man,  the  sheer  delight  he  gets  out 
of  his  struggle,  the  uncompromising  character  of  his 
attack,  and  the  warm  friendliness  of  his  nature,  should 
bring  him  close  enough  to  the  people  in  England  who 
still  acknowledge  the  ancient  tradition  of  Elizabethan 
adventure.  The  phrase  used  of  F.  W.  Robertson  may 
well  be  used  of  him.  He  is  a  troubadour  of  God. 

He  was  born  in  a  fox-hunting  country,  beautiful  with 
the  softness  and  tenderness  of  our  English  shires,  with 
far  views  from  the  hilltops  over  Chesapeake  Bay  to  the 
rim  of  the  Atlantic.  His  father  owned  a  considerable 
estate,  and  the  boy  grew  up  among  many  negro  servants, 
innumerable  animals,  and  a  regular  Zoo  of  pets.  There 
was  a  certain  sense  of  lordship  in  his  mind.  He  liked 
his  own  way,  felt  himself  irritated  by  check,  stung  by 

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MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


correction,  and  incapable  of  seeing  life  from  any  point 
of  view  but  his  own. 

During  his  boyhood  the  central  figure  of  the  family 
life  was  a  venerable  snow-capped  grandmother,  more 
Victorian  than  Victoria  herself,  mildly  morbid  about  a 
long-deceased  husband,  evangelical,  rigid  concerning  the 
proprieties,  her  austere  and  commanding  face  sternly 
set  against  invading  vulgarity,  but  copious  and  anec¬ 
dotal,  with  an  interest  in  the  living  world,  albeit  an 
interest  chiefly  anxious  concerning  its  future. 

Under  the  shadow  of  this  impressive  relic  of  a  van¬ 
ished  antiquity  the  soul  of  the  mutinous  boy  was  chilled 
into  some  semblance  of  reverence,  coming  from  his  ponies 
and  dogs  into  her  presence  with  the  sense  of  entering 
another  world,  breathing  a  different  climate,  speaking  an 
unnatural  language. 

It  was  only  when  he  was  alone  with  his  mother  that  he 
felt  stirrings  within  him  of  tenderness  and  graciousness. 
He  told  me  that  she  was  “always  interested  in  what  I 
was  doing,  but  never  solicitous” — a  telling  phrase  good 
for  all  mothers  to  lodge  in  their  hearts.  His  mother 
never  gave  him  the  feeling  that  he  was  being  watched ; 
he  could  talk  to  her  without  the  paralysing  fear  that 
she  was  listening  only  in  order  to  correct;  a  beautiful 
frankness,  a  real  interest  in  his  affairs,  a  quick  willing¬ 
ness  to  help  him  on  his  own  level,  characterised  her 
attitude ;  and  when  he  wished  to  be  alone  she  understood 
and  withdrew  to  other  occupations. 

From  this  mother  he  learned  to  think  of  a  transcend¬ 
ent  Being  who  had  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
and  of  His  Son  Jesus,  who  had  lived  among  men,  who 
had  taught  them  how  to  live,  and  who  had  been  cruelly 
put  to  death  hy  wicked  enemies. 


THE  VIRGINIAN 


139 


This  teaching  was  associated  in  his  mind  with  the 
different  activities  which  marked  one  day  in  the  week, 
when  he  had  to  be  more  careful  in  his  use  of  soap  and 
flannel,  when  his  best  suit  was  put  out  for  him,  and  when 
he  went  in  company  with  his  parents  to  a  church  carry¬ 
ing  on  the  Anglican  tradition.  There,  too,  he  found  the 
secular  importance  of  his  father  duly  acknowledged,  for 
his  father  was  one  of  the  “patrons”  of  that  church,  and 
was  ever  received  with  a  certain  deference  by  the  other 
officials. 

What  the  boy  thought  of  God  and  Christ,  of  Heaven 
and  Hell,  of  Prayers  and  Hymns,  we  do  not  know;  for 
his  consciousness  did  not  become  alert  in  such  matters 
till  he  was  approaching  the  age  of  fourteen.  It  woke 
suddenly  to  awareness,  and  also  to  enthusiasm,  in  rather 
a  strange  way.  There  came  to  that  church  one  Sunday 
a  very  old  clergyman  who  had  spent  long  years  of  his 
life  as  a  missionary  to  the  mountaineers  in  the  Far 
South.  Such  stories  did  he  tell  in  his  sermon,  stories  of 
pathos  and  heroism,  stories  of  difficulties  and  endurance, 
stories  of  violent  men  broken  down  by  the  beauty  of 
Christ,  and  bad  men  restored  to  goodness  and  happiness 
by  the  power  of  Christ,  that  the  little  boy  in  the  big 
pew  resolved  then  and  there  that  he  too  would  be  a  mis¬ 
sionary. 

The  strange  feature  in  this  idea  is  its  tenacity.  It  did 
not  fly  in  at  one  door  of  his  soul  and  out  at  the  other, 
like  Bede’s  sparrow;  it  stayed  there,  worked  there,  be¬ 
came  the  master-thought  of  his  mind.  When  he  was  in 
the  fields,  or  among  his  animals,  or  talking  to  the 
negroes,  this  idea  went  to  sleep ;  but  when  he  came  to 
lie  down  in  his  bed  at  night  it  awoke  with  a  freshness  that 
held  his  thoughts.  He  began  to  read  the  Bible  with  a 


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MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


boy’s  earnest  attentiveness,  to  say  his  prayers  with  no 
mere  formal  sense  of  fulfilling  a  duty,  to  cultivate  an 
interest  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  Nevertheless,  he 
still  remained  the  proud  and  self-willed  little  boy  of  the 
years  before  this  dream. 

Soon  after  the  visit  of  the  missionary  he  was  packed 
off  to  a  “Church  School,”  which  is  an  American  equiva¬ 
lent  for  the  English  public  school,  and  his  clerical  ambi¬ 
tion  was  not  daunted  by  the  visible  and  even  scandalous 
enmity  which  existed  between  the  clergymen  who  taught 
him  his  lessons,  preached  to  him  in  church  about  the 
gospel,  and  administered  to  him  the  sacrament  of  Holy 
Communion.  These  men  hated  each  other  quite  openly, 
and  did  not  hide  that  ugly  fact,  in  which  they  gloried, 
from  the  boys  under  their  care. 

He  says  that  the  religious  studies  of  this  school  were 
“lifeless,  sapless,”  but  gladly  acknowledges  that  the  tone 
was  good,  and  says  that  his  spiritual  life  was  helped  in 
the  fields  and  by  the  sea.  There  was  not  a  boy  in  the 
school  who  had  come  from  a  bad  home. 

From  this  school  he  proceeded  to  one  of  the  best  Uni¬ 
versities  of  America,  and  soon  became  a  figure  in  its 
most  fashionable  club  (a  form  of  college),  ending  up  as 
a  member  of  its  Senior  Council,  and  the  President  of 
the  most  distinguished  Society  in  the  University.  He 
was  of  a  nature  to  make  an  impression. 

The  war  in  Europe  brought  him  in  1915  to  the  British 
Islands  with  a  group  of  American  University  men  who 
had  volunteered  to  serve  with  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  He 
worked  like  a  nigger,  but  confesses  that  if  he  touched  one 
man  that  summer  it  was  all  he  did,  and  that  man  not 
vitally. 

His  next  spiritual  adventure  was  in  China,  where  his 


THE  VIRGINIAN 


141 


University  maintains  an  important  college.  He  says 
he  was  astonished  by  the  wonderful  machine  he  found  in 
China,  but  more  astonished  by  the  fact  that  it  did 
nothing — “machinery,  but  no  motion.”  He  was  told  by 
all  the  workers  that  he  was  doing  wonderful  things,  but 
he  knew  very  well  that  he  was  doing  nothing.  The  busi¬ 
ness  school,  the  gymnasium,  the  library,  the  classes,  the 
social  work — all  these  were  crowded  by  young  China¬ 
men;  but  what  came  of  them?  When  Ruskin  was  told 
that  a  submarine  cable  had  been  laid  between  England 
and  India  he  asked,  “What  messages  will  it  convey?” 

One  day  there  came  to  this  Chinese  city  the  Surgeon 
of  Souls,  with  a  group  of  men  devoted  to  the  work  of 
personal  religion.  He  was  pointed  out  to  the  Virginian 
in  this  fashion:  “There  goes  a  man  who  is  doing  what 
these  missionaries  and  Christian  workers  are  talking 
about.”  The  Virginian  took  a  good  look  at  him  and  did 
not  like  him.  He  thought  him  crude.  The  attitude  of 
the  aristocratic  University  towards  the  college  where 
F.  B.  had  begun  to  work  was  one  of  supercilious  con¬ 
tempt.  The  Virginian  shared  that  contempt. 

But  interest  in  F.  B.  increased,  and  the  Virginian 
found  himself  listening  to  stories  about  him.  Presently 
he  was  making  F.  B.’s  acquaintance,  and  found  him, 
rather  condescendingly  perhaps,  a  person  worth  know¬ 
ing.  One  day  he  drew  F.  B.  aside  and  asked  him  if  he 
would  tackle  a  certain  young  Chinaman  in  whom  he  was 
interested.  F.  B.  replied,  “That’s  your  job.  If  you 
haven’t  anything  to  give  him  by  now  you  ought  to !” 
The  Virginian  was  mad.  He  went  away,  not  sorrow¬ 
fully,  but  in  a  towering  rage. 

When  this  temper  evaporated  he  faced  the  truth  of  F. 
B.’s  bitter  taunt.  Nothing  to  give!  Was  that  really 


142 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


the  truth?  If  so,  how  serious,  how  impossible,  his  posi¬ 
tion.  He  fought  with  himself.  Was  he  to  give  up  his 
hope  of  helping  men?  Would  it  always  be  that  he  had 
nothing  to  give?  The  question  drove  him  to  F.  B. 

“One  day,”  he  tells  me,  “we  got  to  business.  I  told 
him,  in  spite  of  myself,  my  temptations  and  my  sins. 
They  came  out  almost  before  I  knew  it.  For  the  first 
time  they  were  outside  myself,  in  words,  words  that 
startled  and  shamed.  He  understood.  We  got  it  all 
into  the  open.  The  position  became  absolutely  clear. 
I  saw  at  once  what  was  keeping  me  from  power.  There 
was  no  overflow,  because  there  was  no  inflow,  and  no  in¬ 
flow  because  sin  was  walling  out  the  power  of  God.  I 
tried  to  bring  up  intellectual  difficulties.  He  refused 
to  discuss  them,  would  not  even  glance  at  them.  This 
may  seem  to  some — it  didn’t  to  me — a  source  of  weak¬ 
ness  ;  it  gives  the  impression  that  he  cares  nothing  for 
intellectual  integrity.  The  truth  is  the  man  is  a  born 
mystic.  Get  him  alone  and  you  realise  this  at  once. 
And  you  realise  also  the  truth  of  what  William  James 
says,  that  we  have  got  to  accept  the  experience  of  the 
mystic  as  valid  experience.  F.  B.  made  a  tremendous 
impression  on  me.  His  simple  insistence  on  the  power 
of  sin  to  wall  out  any  vital  consciousness  of  God  was 
irresistible.  He  showed  me,  quite  mercilessly,  my  spirit¬ 
ual  impotence  in  the  lives  of  other  men.  He  laid  it  all 
bare  to  me,  naked  in  broad  daylight,  my  spiritual  im¬ 
potence.  What  good  was  I?  Let  a  man  ask  himself 
that  question.  It’s  a  searcher.” 

That  night  the  Virginian  tried  to  pray,  but  felt  that 
his  prayer  was  useless.  He  knew  that  he  was  at  a  turn¬ 
ing-point.  Either  he  would  go  back  to  America  and  sur¬ 
render  to  the  world,  or — .  The  point  that  frightened 


THE  VIRGINIAN 


143 


him  was  this :  If  he  took  the  plunge  it  might  mean,  not 
a  decorative  interest  in  religion,  not  the  patronising 
association  of  a  rich  young  man  with  a  University 
scheme  of  social  welfare,  but  the  mission-field  for  life. 
Was  he  ready  for  that?  To  be  a  parson? 

He  walked  about  his  room.  “My  sins,”  he  said,  “rose 
up  before  me  straight  as  tombstones.  If  I  took  this 
plunge  it  meant  a  clearing  up  all  along  the  line.  It 
meant  confession.  It  meant  a  break  with  all  that  had 
gone  before — a  new  life.  Then  I  saw  that  this  was  a 
matter  of  the  will  not  of  the  intellect.  I  faced  that 
knowledge  for  several  moments.  My  will !  Was  I  will¬ 
ing  to  do  this  thing,  or  was  I  not  willing?  A  strange 
thought,  annihilating  in  its  effect — my  little  pygmy  will 
opposed  to  the  Will  of  God,  my  little  pride  sniffing  at  the 
Universe,  my  heart  dead  cold  in  the  Presence  of  the  Al¬ 
mighty  !  Without  a  scrap  of  emotion,  but  with  what 
I  can  only  call  a  great  heave  of  my  will,  I  knelt  down 
to  make  my  submission,  to  give  myself,  without  reserva¬ 
tion,  to  God.  Usually  this  moment  costs  something  in 
nervous  energy,  and  results  in  emotional  excitation.  I 
experienced  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  was  sensible  only  of 
calm,  of  a  feeling  that  something  needful  and  right  had 
been  done.  I  felt  very  little  at  the  time.  I  simply  real¬ 
ised  that  I  had  jumped  a  fence  at  which  I  had  long 
balked.  There  was  no  breaking  in  of  light  upon  me,  nor 
anything  unusual.  After  the  prayer,  which  tore  away 
a  wall  of  my  own  erection — the  wall  of  unwillingness  to 
face  God’s  Will  fully — I  prayed  again,  but  without 
ecstasy.  I  rose  from  that  prayer  hoping  that  I  might 
be  used  to  help  others,  and  feeling  that  I  had  done  what 
was  required  of  me.  But  I  was  not  to  be  left  only  with 
that  feeling.  As  I  lay  in  bed  there  came  to  me  a  dis- 


144 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


tinct  Voice,  and  that  Voice  said,  There  is  no  work  of 
Mine  to  do  for  him  who  is  not  wholly  Mine.  I  cannot 
tell  you  the  effect  of  those  words.  They  were  no  words 
of  mine.  They  were  different  from  all  other  words  I 
had  ever  heard.  And  they  revealed  to  me  what  I  believe 
to  be  the  central  truth  of  religion.5’ 

The  change  in  the  Virginian  from  that  hour  was  visi¬ 
ble  to  all  his  friends.  He  became  the  impassioned  cham¬ 
pion  of  personal  religion.  Gone  for  him  was  all  hesitancy. 
Abandoned,  too,  was  the  attitude  of  a  looker-on. 
He  flung  himself  with  a  joyful  enthusiasm  into  the  work 
of  helping  men  face  to  face,  swept  forward  from  all  his 
former  landmarks  by  the  immediate  success  of  his  efforts. 
He  told  me  that  association  with  E.  B.  taught  him  “the 
absolute  workability  of  the  thing  he  talked  about.5’ 
This  was  no  question,  remember,  of  dogma  or  of  cere¬ 
monial  rite.  It  was  the  human  question.  It  was  a  case 
of  drowning  men  saved  from  death.  E.  B.  spoke  of  men 
who  were  “suffering  hell,”  or  of  men  lost  in  a  fog,  or  of 
men  who  were  missing  all  the  things  that  make  life  splen¬ 
did,  and  showed  him  those  same  men  with  shining  eyes, 
glad  voices,  happy  as  the  day  is  long.  There  they  were 
before  the  Virginian’s  eyes — miracles.  Changed  men! 
A  wonderful  thought;  changed  from  darkness  to  light, 
from  blindness  to  vision,  from  misery  to  happiness,  from 
death  to  life,  laughing  in  the  joy  of  that  change. 

What  a  power,  to  do  these  things ! 

He  exclaimed  to  me,  “I  hear  people  say  that  what 
men  want  is  something  quite  human.  Nonsense!  What 
they  want  is  something  wholly  and  absolutely  divine. 
The  mistake  lies  in  expressing  this  Divine  Something  in 
dark  and  mysterious  language.  The  language  must  be 


THE  VIRGINIAN 


145 


human.  But  the  thing  itself,  the  mysterious  Power  which 
changes  life  in  a  moment,  that  must  be  shown  from  the 
first  as  divine.  I  see  it  in  this  manner:  In  each  one  of 
us  there  is  a  vestige  of  the  Christ.  It  is  the  light  that 
lighteth  every  man.  Until  sin  has  blotted  out  from  con¬ 
sciousness  the  knowledge  of  this  light,  every  man  feels 
that  there  is  something  within  him  higher  than  himself. 
I  am  certain  this  feeling  exists  in  all  men  who  are  not 
dead  in  sin — the  greatest  of  men  of  science  and  the  most 
ragged  and  ignorant  of  down-and-outers.  It  is  there 
in  their  souls,  making  for  a  sense  of  dualism,  dividing 
their  personality,  distracting  their  unity.  And  I  am 
equally  convinced  that  when  a  man  is  acutely  conscious 
of  this  division,  and  meditates  on  the  best  way  of  secur¬ 
ing  inward  peace,  he  naturally,  instinctively,  inevitably 
turns  to  Christ.  This  is  my  firm  conviction.  It  is  born 
of  experience.  The  surrender,  if  it  is  to  be  made,  is  to 
Christ,  to  no  one  else.  To  Christ,  the  lover  and  saviour 
of  men.  This  is  my  theology:  God  has  left  a  part  of 
Himself  in  each  of  us,  and  this  divine  part  of  our  nature, 
in  every  moral  crisis,  recognises  the  historic  Jesus  and  the 
Christ  of  experience  as  its  necessary  complement.  Of 
course,  the  traditional,  the  ecclesiastical,  the  theological 
mind  has  obscured  Him ;  but  I  am  certain  that  where  men 
are  unprejudiced,  where  they  are  in  dead  earnest  about 
getting  right,  where  they  want  unity  with  the  whole  heart, 
the  whole  spirit,  and  the  whole  mind,  they  turn  to  Christ. 
Let  me  sum  it  all  up  in  a  few  words.  What  changes  life 
is,  first,  a  sense  of  sin,  a  haunting  knowledge  that  the 
habits  of  sin  have  got  one  in  their  deadly  grip,  second, 
an  experience  of  the  hilarity  of  Christianity  really  lived, 
and,  third,  the  immense  appeal  of  Christ’s  challenge  to 
make  a  new  world.” 


146 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


On  no  other  subject  is  this  fighting  Virginian  so  glad 
to  talk  as  the  hilarity  of  the  religious  life.  “The  gay¬ 
est  bunch  of  men  I  know,”  he  tells  you,  “is  the  group  that 
swings  round  F.  B.  They  are  fellows  who  have  found 
something  worth  finding.  We  never  meet  but  what  we 
have  a  good  time.  This  is  far  from  the  professional 
mirth  of  certain  sorts  of  religious  people.  It  is  the 
laughter  of  men  who  really  know  there  is  a  way  out  in 
this  world,  and  who  are  doing  their  best  to  make  it 
known  to  others.”  No  defence  for  such  happiness  is 
necessary.  It  is  a  happiness  that  cannot  be  helped.  Do 
men  gather  thorns  of  vines  or  thistles  of  fig-trees?  As 
the  sun  shines  so  does  the  heart  of  a  man  conscious  of 
unity  with  his  Creator,  conscious,  too,  of  power  to 
change  human  life,  rejoice  with  a  joy  unknown  to  the 
victims  of  delusion  and  the  slaves  of  sin. 

In  this  hilarity  one  sees  the  joy  of  a  spirit  set  free 
from  the  contagion  of  the  world’s  slow  stain,  emanci¬ 
pated  from  all  the  petty  conventions  and  parochial  re¬ 
straints  of  that  old,  unhappy  world,  launched  definitely 
on  the  radiant  ocean  of  eternity.  The  world  looks  upon 
these  men  as  “odd,”  but  it  has  no  idea  how  odd  it  looks 
to  them.  What  a  dull  world,  what  a  sad  world,  what  a 
blind  world,  and  what  a  stupid,  blundering  world  it  must 
seem,  in  the  eyes  of  men  whose  hearts  know  nothing  ex¬ 
cept  the  bliss  of  conscious  and  unselfish  union  with  God. 
The  Virginian’s  favourite  saying  of  Christ  is  the  challenge, 
“My  doctrine  is  not  Mine,  but  His  that  sent  Me.  If  any 
man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  Myself.” 
He  says  that  those  who  have  experienced  this  mighty 
change  do  not  speak  of  what  they  think  or  of  what  they 


THE  VIRGINIAN 


147 


hope,  but  of  what  they  know .  That  is  the  reward  of 
a  unified  personality. 

Even  after  that  night  when  he  made  his  submission 
the  Virginian  has  grown  in  this  knowledge.  He  tells 
me  that  F.  B.  asked  him  in  those  early  days  to  attend  a 
private  conference  on  the  subject  of  personal  religion, 
promising  him  that  he  should  meet  a  wonderful  group 
of  men — “All  F.  B.’s  geese  are  swans;  it  is  partly  his 
intense  enthusiasm  and  belief  in  us  which  keeps  us  func¬ 
tioning  !”  When  he  got  to  his  conference  the  Virginian 
was  disappointed  by  what  looked  like  a  lot  of  quite 
ordinary  folks.  The  wall  arose  once  more  between  him 
and  the  souls  of  others.  F.  B.,  reading  his  thoughts, 
drew  him  aside,  and  whispered  into  his  ear  this  question, 
“What  would  you  have  thought  of  the  twelve  apostles?” 

From  that  moment  he  learned  not  only  to  abandon 
a  superior  attitude  towards  others,  and  not  only  to  sus¬ 
pect  and  examine  the  grounds  of  instinctive  antipathy, 
but  positively  to  look  always  for  the  good  in  others,  to 
stand  tiptoe  to  welcome  the  spiritual  truth  behind  all 
physical  appearances,  to  become  a  realist  of  human  ex¬ 
istence.  The  last  vesture  of  self  was  torn  away.  He  be¬ 
came  a  troubadour  of  God. 

I  profess  no  other  share 
In  the  selection  of  my  lot,  than  this 
My  ready  answer  to  the  will  of  God 
Who  summons  me  to  be  His  organ.  All 
Whose  innate  strength  supports  them  shall  succeed 
No  better  than  the  sages. 

He  might  so  easily  have  been  a  conventional  figure  in 
American  life,  of  no  more  use  to  the  universe  than  a 


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mushroom,  a  dull,  unimaginative,  and  self-satisfied  citi¬ 
zen  of  a  materialistic  civilisation.  Most  of  us  say  at 
one  time  or  another: 

The  world  is  too  much  with  us;  late  and  soon. 

Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers; 

Little  we  see  in  Nature  that  is  ours; 

but  not  many  think  how  definitely  dreary  is  such  an 
existence,  or  realise  that  there  is  a  way  out — a  way  out 
into  unity  and  joy. 

Let  any  man  who  reads  these  words  ask  himself 
whether  he  knows  any  way  out  of  this  suffocating  and 
soul-destroying  materialism  save  only  the  way  taken  by 
the  Virginian — that  plunge  away  from  self,  that  baptism 
in  the  moving  waters  of  God — which  surely  we  may 
hope  are  “for  ever  at  their  priest-like  task  of  pure  ab¬ 
lution  round  earth’s  human  shores.”  And  the  reward ! 

Are  there  not,  Festus,  are  there  not,  dear  Michal, 

Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver, 

One — when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge. 

One — when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl? 

Festus,  I  plunge. 

“Again,  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  like  unto  a  mer¬ 
chant  man,  seeking  goodly  pearls,  who,  when  he  had 
found  one  pearl  of  great  price,  went  and  sold  all  that  he 
had,  and  bought  it.” 


CONCLUSION 


IMMORTALITY 

SCIENCE  teaches  that  this  planet  is  millions  of  years 
old.  For  great  periods  of  time  it  was  a  flaming  mass. 
For  still  great  periods  of  time  its  atmosphere  was  com¬ 
posed  of  carbon-dioxide — -a  deadly  poison.  Before  or¬ 
ganic  existence  was  possible,  forests  of  trees  had  to 
arise,  drinking  up  that  poisonous  atmosphere  and  bury¬ 
ing  it  through  their  roots  in  the  earth.  Millennium  suc¬ 
ceeded  millennium  before  this  planet,  answering  to  the 
direction  of  many  influences  composing  its  mass,  became 
a  habitable  world.  Age  succeeded  age  before  it  became 
gentle,  and  many  more  ages  passed  away  before  it  at¬ 
tained  to  a  condition  of  beauty. 

The  first  forms  of  organic  existence  were  of  the  sim¬ 
plest  character,  and  their  function  was  little  more  than 
an  unconscious  response  to  environment.  Over  vast 
periods  of  time  these  lowly  forms  of  life  rose  to  a  condi¬ 
tion  of  greater  consciousness,  and  were  able,  chiefly  by 
heredity,  to  make  a  more  intelligent  response  to  environ¬ 
ment.  Observe  at  once  that  in  these  humble  forms  of 
life  there  was  the  capacity  to  respond  to  environment, 
the  possibility  that  they  might,  as  many  did,  so  perish¬ 
ing,  refuse  to  make  that  response. 

After  long  asons  of  time  creatures  emerged  from  this 
patient  process  of  evolution  whose  brains  were  capable 

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of  co-operating  with  heredity  and  environment  to  ad¬ 
vance  the  fortunes  of  their  species.  But  even  the  highest 
representatives  of  these  creatures  were  still  dominated 
by  environment  and  heredity ;  their  success  in  the 
struggle  for  survival  lay  solely  in  the  perfection  with 
which  their  organs  of  sensation  responded  to  these  two 
great  influences.  They  never  once  attempted  to 
dominate  their  environment ;  they  never  once  felt  that 
they  could  be  the  masters  of  their  instincts.  Excellence 
lay  for  them  in  co-operating  with  the  exterior  stimuli 
which  were  their  destiny. 

A  million  years  ago,  or  perhaps  half  a  million  years 
ago,  there  ascended  from  the  most  cunning  and  capable 
of  these  creatures,  branching  away  from  the  line  which 
ended  in  the  higher  kind  of  apes,  a  being  whom  we  call 
man.  He  was  at  first  different  from  other  creatures  only 
in  one  respect — he  believed  himself  capable  of  improv¬ 
ing  his  conditions.  He  was  acted  on  by  environment, 
but  he  studied  that  environment  with  intelligent  eyes. 
He  was  urged  in  old-established  ways  by  the  drive  of 
powerful  instincts,  but  he  brooded  on  that  strange 
heredity  within  him  and  asked  himself  if  such  an  instinct 
was  good,  if  such  another  instinct  was  bad. 

He  ascended  to  a  remarkable  dominion  over  all  his 
fellow-creatures.  It  was  the  dominion  of  thought. 
Evolution  had  at  last  produced  in  man  a  being  who  could 
weigh  evidence,  who  could  reflect,  who  could  choose,  who 
could  not  only  defy  environment  but  even  cross-examine 
his  own  consciousness  and  so  master  his  mastering 
heredity.  He  invented  clothes,  he  discovered  fire,  and 
thereby  rose  superior  to  the  environment  of  climate.  He 
laid  down  the  club  of  his  heredity  and  prepared  for  a 
conquering  posterity  by  shaping  spear  and  hook.  For 


IMMORTALITY 


151 


him  life  was  improvement.  He  set  himself  by  the  power 
of  thought  to  change  the  conditions  of  human  existence 
and  to  strengthen  his  sense  of  dominion  over  all  other 
living  things. 

Now  let  us  pause  to  reflect  that  this  ascension  of  man 
into  self-consciousness  and  a  sense  of  mastery  came 
slowly  to  birth,  and  from  an  ancestry  slavish  but  not 
impotent,  plastic  but  not  impassive.  From  the  first 
birth  of  life — and  perhaps  life  is  the  one  invisible  sub¬ 
stance  out  of  which  all  things  have  been  made — there 
was  the  power  of  change,  the  capacity  for  adaptability. 
Science  proclaims  this  fact  as  the  solid  foundation  of  its 
evolutionary  hypothesis.  There  is  no  rational  thinking 
without  it.  The  very  earth  has  changed  again  and 
again,  growing  out  of  horror  into  beauty,  flinging  off 
the  likeness  of  Caliban  to  put  upon  itself  the  whole 
armour  of  Ariel.  The  creatures  of  the  earth  have 
changed,  dying  in  uncountable  millions  to  produce  heirs 
of  a  higher  survival  value — creatures  more  beautiful 
or  more  cunning  than  themselves,  creatures  with  a 
keener  instinct  for  their  necessity  to  co-operate  with 
environment.  And  finally  came  man,  with  his  self-con¬ 
scious  mind,  with  his  language,  his  music,  his  mathe¬ 
matics,  his  irresistible  urge  towards  dominance  and 
improvement. 

We  no  longer  say  with  South,  “ Aristotle  was  but  the 
rubbish  of  an  Adam,  and  Athens  the  rudiments  of  Para¬ 
dise.”  We  laugh  with  Jean  Paul  at  such  nonsense; 
“Adam,  in  his  state  of  innocence,  possessed  a  knowledge 
of  all  the  arts  and  sciences,  universal  and  scholastic  his¬ 
tory,  the  several  penal  and  other  codes  of  law,  and  all 
the  old,  dead  languages,  as  well  as  the  living.  He  was, 


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as  it  were,  a  living  Pegasus  and  Pindus,  a  movable  lodge 
of  sublime  light,  a  royal  literary  society,  a  pocket-seat 
of  the  Muses,  and  a  short  golden  age  of  Louis  Quatorze.” 
Humanity  has  definitely  done  with  such  nonsense.  Man 
has  not  fallen;  he  has  wonderfully  risen,  and  is  still  ad¬ 
vancing. 

The  question  arises,  Is  this  mighty  epic,  set  in  the 
midst  of  so  sublime  a  universe,  without  reason,  without 
purpose,  without  value?  There  is  a  disposition  in  the 
modern  mind  to  avoid  answering  the  inevitable  question, 
Accident  or  Design?  Science,  it  is  said,  neither  affirms 
Accident  nor  accepts  Design.  Difficult  words  are  strung 
together  for  the  purpose  of  suggesting  some  third  way  of 
looking  at  the  universe.  But  there  can  be  no  third  way. 
Either  the  universe  has  come  to  be  what  it  is  by  mind¬ 
less  accident,  or  its  history  is  the  intelligible  action  of  a 
Will.  More  and  more  clearly  do  the  best  educated  men 
of  science — those,  I  mean,  who  are  not  ignorant  of  philo¬ 
sophy  and  history — perceive  that  a  purpose  runs 
through  the  entire  process  of  evolution.  Life  did  not 
rest  content  with  automatic  subsistence.  Something  in 
itself  made  an  effort  to  respond  more  intelligently  to 
environment;  and  that  something  within  itself,  having 
responded  with  marvellous  success  to  the  influences  with¬ 
out  it,  becomes  in  man  greater  than  all  other  influences. 
“The  higher  organisms  gradually  substitute  internal  for 
external  stimuli.”  Know  thyself  was  a  great  utterance; 
The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you  was  a  greater 
revelation  of  truth. 

To  what  purpose,  then,  is  creation  moving?  If 
science  shows  us  an  immemorial  movement  from  acquies¬ 
cence  to  dominance,  from  automatism  to  choosing  rea- 


IMMORTALITY 


153 


son,  we  can  say  with  confidence  that  one  purpose  of  this 
movement  is  the  attainment  of  freedom.  Again,  if 
science  shows  us  an  unbroken  movement  from  structural 
evolution  to  mental  evolution,  and  from  mental  evolu¬ 
tion  to  ethical  evolution,  we  can  as  confidently  say  that 
another  purpose  of  this  movement  is  the  development  of 
a  moral  being. 

These  conclusions  admit  of  no  argument.  If  proto¬ 
plasm  is  a  fact,  if  Eoanthropus  is  a  fact,  so  also  is 
Seneca  a  fact,  and  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  Abraham  Lin¬ 
coln.  If  at  the  beginning  of  the  process  is  an  incan¬ 
descent  nebula,  at  the  end  of  it  is  man,  with  his 
distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  with  his  craving  for 
beauty,  with  his  longing  to  discover  causation. 

Therefore  our  next  rational  question  concerns  the 
character  of  this  movement  in  life  which  we  call  evolu¬ 
tion;  is  it  a  planetary  thing,  a  thing  parochial  to  this 
earth,  or  is  it  of  the  universe?  Science  makes  no  separa¬ 
tion  of  earth  and  universe.  The  physical  origin  of  our 
planet  is  one  with  all  the  starry  host  of  heaven.  It  mat¬ 
ters  not  whether  the  earth  is  the  centre  of  the  firmament 
or  its  least  significant  constituent ;  it  is  there.  Surely, 
then,  we  have  at  least  some  show  of  reason  for  the  as¬ 
sumption  that  the  purpose  of  terrestrial  evolution  is 
cosmic. 

The  moral  freedom  of  man,  attained  after  millions  of 
years  of  evolution — an  attainment,  too,  if  we  consider 
the  initial  horror  of  this  planet,  of  almost  sublime  splen¬ 
dour — must  have  some  meaning  for  the  universe.  Evo¬ 
lution  brings  personality  into  existence  on  this  earth 
after  many  millenniums  of  suffering;  what  reason  have 
we  to  think  that  it  has  now  switched  off  its  vitalising 
current  of  creation?  Martineau  said  that  “it  is  far 


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more  incredible  that,  from  not  having  been,  we  are,  than 
that,  from  actual  being,  we  shall  continue  to  be.”  It  is 
the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  question  which  Professor 
Joachim  expresses  in  this  fashion:  “Is  it  possible  for 
that  which  is  not  to  begin  to  be,  and  is  it  possible  for  that 
which  is  to  cease  to  be?”  Science  seems  to  teach  that 
life  never  ceases  to  be,  but  will  not  yet  admit  that  per¬ 
sonality  persists  after  the  collapse  of  the  physical  in¬ 
strument.  But  this  is  a  progress  towards  nothing,  a 
race  with  no  goal  but  the  starting-point,  an  ascent,  the 
topmost  peak  of  which  is  the  bottomless  abyss  of  be¬ 
ginning. 

At  this  point  we  must  part  with  science  and  return 
to  our  original  inquiry,  asking  ourselves  whether  the 
fact  of  conversion  furnishes  any  evidence  for  the  re¬ 
ligious  theory  that  personality  is  only  a  stage  in  evolu¬ 
tion,  and  that  the  next  stage  is  the  survival  of  that 
personality  as  a  spirit  of  the  universe. 

It  is  the  testimony  of  all  those  who  have  undergone 
this  great  spiritual  experience  that  it  enables  them  to 
establish  a  new  relationship  with  the  universe.  Just  as 
man  of  the  Palaeolithic  Period  established  a  relationship 
with  reality  superior  to  that  of  the  Primates,  and  man 
of  the  Neolithic  Period  established  a  similar  relationship 
superior  to  that  of  his  Palaeolithic  ancestors,  so  these 
men,  all  down  the  ages,  have  testified  that  a  subordina¬ 
tion  of  their  lower  nature  to  the  demands  of  their  higher 
nature  establishes  for  them  a  new  relationship  with 
reality — a  relationship  so  pervasive  in  its  effects  that 
they  liken  it  to  a  new  birth. 

“Heighten  the  internal  activities  of  the  soul  to  a  cer¬ 
tain  pitch,”  said  Alger,  “and  the  convictions  they  en- 


IMMORTALITY 


155 


gender  will  be  so  intense,  and  the  experiences  so 
absorbing,  as  irresistibly  to  sweep  away  all  opposing 
doubts  and  fill  every  craving  with  the  triumphant  flow 
of  life.  What  overwhelming  revelations  of  the  provi¬ 
dence  of  God  and  eternal  life  .  .  .  may  thus  be  made 
to  prepared  spirits  only  those  who  receive  them  know. 
Paul  said  he  was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  and 
heard  unspeakable  words.” 

One  notable  effect  of  this  change  is  entirely  consonant 
with  the  findings  of  physical  science.  The  animal  senses, 
we  are  told  by  science,  are  not  to  be  trusted.  A  man 
who  relied  upon  those  senses  could  not  advance  a  yard 
towards  the  truth  of  the  physical  universe.  The  eye,  the 
ear,  the  nose,  the  tongue,  and  the  hand  bring  many  false 
reports  to  the  brain,  it  is  only  the  man  who  edits  those 
reports  with  his  reason  who  can  arrive  at  truth.  A  man 
who  relies  on  his  senses  must  believe  that  the  earth  is 
still,  that  the  sun  rises  and  sets,  that  the  stars  disappear 
with  daylight.  He  must  remain  ignorant  of  electricity ;  he 
must  know  nothing  of  the  world  revealed  by  the  micro¬ 
scope;  he  must  continue  a  savage — the  dupe  of  illusion. 

So  the  man  who  has  experienced  conversion  reports 
to  us  that  the  animal  senses  are  not  to  be  trusted  in  the 
work  of  fixing  values.  Trust  to  those  senses,  and  you 
will  bring  civilisation  to  an  end.  Jesus  becomes  the  fool 
of  history,  and  Herod  the  wise  man.  All  materialism,  as 
all  false  science,  rests  on  the  animal  instincts.  Trust 
to  them  and  you  can  find  a  good  reason  for  murder, 
greed,  and  crime  of  every  order;  no  reason  at  all  for 
self-abnegation. 

Just  as  science  must  control  the  animal  senses  by 
reason,  in  order  to  arrive  at  physical  reality,  so,  we  are 
told  by  religion,  man  must  control  those  same  senses  if 


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he  is  to  arrive  at  spiritual  reality.  And  just  as  science 
teaches  us  that  all  progress  in  evolution  has  depended 
on  the  establishment  of  a  new  relationship  with  the  ac¬ 
tualities  of  environment,  so  religion  tells  us  that  spiritual 
progress  depends  on  the  establishment  of  a  new  relation¬ 
ship  with  the  ultimate  reality  of  the  universe. 

The  religious  man,  it  would  seem,  carries  the  work  of 
physical  science  to  a  logical  conclusion.  If  evolution 
has  brought  into  existence  a  moral  being  capable  of  dis¬ 
tinguishing  truth  from  error,  is  it  not  rational  to  assume 
that  this  triumph  of  structural  and  ethical  development 
should  continue  in  a  creature  minded  to  investigate  the 
truth  of  its  own  being?  Is  man  for  ever  to  grope  back¬ 
ward  for  explanation,  never  to  reach  forward  for  satis¬ 
faction?  If  evolution  has  created  a  being  able  to  dominate 
environment  and  heredity,  able  to  say  “I  am  free,” 
able  to  choose,  able  to  decide,  able  to  apprehend  that 
within  itself  is  a  power  greater  than  all  the  influences 
which  determine  the  lives  of  other  creatures,  truly  it 
would  be  absurd  to  say  of  such  a  being  that  its  freedom 
to  choose  is  limited  to  material  objects.  May  it  not  say 
whether  it  will  choose  to  live  or  die?  May  it  not  exer¬ 
cise  its  liberty  to  strengthen  within  itself  that  craving 
for  ultimate  satisfaction  wrhich  is  the  most  powerful 
energy  in  its  evolution? 

Does  it  not  look  as  if  evolution  has  toiled  solely  to 
bring  into  existence  a  free  creature  able  of  itself  to 
choose  eternal  values,  able  and  willing  to  set  its  affections 
on  those  spiritual  qualities  which  lift  the  race  above  the 
stagnations  of  animalism?  Does  it  not  seem  a  natural 
inference  from  the  theory  of  evolution  that  a  race  which 


IMMORTALITY 


157 


rises  above  the  stagnations  of  animalism,  and  produces 
individuals  who  live  spiritual  lives,  is  capable  of  attain¬ 
ing  to  a  spiritual  consummation?  Why  this  freedom  of 
man’s  sou]?  Why  this  infinite  labour  of  evolution?  If 
purpose  is  admitted,  if  accident  is  excluded,  surely  here 
in  the  freedom  of  man’s  soul  to  choose  good  and  to  reject 
evil,  here  in  his  passionate  hope  of  immortality,  is  the 
one  rational  explanation  of  the  world  process. 

We  reach  the  question  of  rewards  and  punishment. 
The  natural  reward  of  the  man  who  desires  spiritual 
satisfactions  (in  religious  language,  who  loves  God)  is 
the  opportunity  to  enjoy  those  satisfactions.  The  na¬ 
tural  punishment  of  the  man  who  desires  animal  satisfac¬ 
tions  (in  religious  language,  who  denies  God)  is  the  death 
of  his  soul — that  part  of  him  which  can  only  be  satisfied 
by  spiritual  growth,  that  immortable  part  of  him  which 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness  might  have  ren¬ 
dered  immortal.  Such  a  theory  of  rewards  and  punish¬ 
ments  not  only  furnishes  the  mind  with  an  honourable 
idea  of  the  Creator’s  justice,  but  provides  the  evolu¬ 
tionary  hypothesis  with  a  completing  purpose  worthy 
of  its  travail. 

“Love  is  the  one  thing  in  the  world,”  says  Professor 
Simpson,  “that  cannot  be  forced ;  the  moment  compul¬ 
sion  or  pressure  enters,  it  ceases  to  be  Love.  Man  can 
only  respond  spontaneously  to  the  Love  of  God  as  a 
free  being,  otherwise  the  response  can  have  no  value 
even  to  God  Himself.” 

Immortality,  in  this  view,  is  seen  as  the  crown  of 
physical  creation,  the  achievement  to  which  evolution  is 
still  working.  Man,  with  his  freedom  from  exterior  in¬ 
fluences  and  his  dominion  over  the  obstructions  of  his  own 


158 


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animal  nature,  appears  before  us,  not  as  a  wretched 
and  guilty  person  seeking  to  save  his  soul  from  cruel 
and  tyrannical  punishment,  but  as  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages,  who  grows  into  the  likeness  of  the  thing  he  loves, 
who  becomes  immortal  because  with  all  his  heart,  and 
with  all  his  mind,  and  with  all  his  strength  he  hungers 
and  thirsts  after  the  things  of  immortality. 

Such  a  thesis  of  existence  gives  a  new  dignity  to  re¬ 
ligion.  In  this  thesis  religion  moves  to  the  van  of  evolu¬ 
tion,  and  becomes  neither  a  picturesque  tradition  nor  a 
lingering  superstition,  but  the  trumpet-note  of  man’s 
attaining  spirit.  It  calls  to  those  who  march  forward 
to  press  confidently  on;  it  rouses  hope  in  the  heart  of 
those  who  struggle  and  fall ;  it  warns  those  who  refuse 
to  follow  that  death  will  overtake  them  in  the  night.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  evolution;  it  is  the  voice  of  God. 

The  depressed  and  disheartened  Churches  are  in  evil 
plight  chiefly,  I  think,  because  they  have  no  thesis  of 
existence  in  their  minds,  no  creative  conception  of  the 
evolutionary  thesis,  only  an  inherited  theology  of  which 
they  begin  to  feel  a  little  ashamed.  If  they  realised 
that  their  duty  is  not  to  patch  and  repair  that  theology, 
but  rather,  with  great  enthusiasm  and  a  proved  faith, 
to  rouse  in  the  soul  of  man  the  longing,  the  desire,  the 
love,  which  alone  can  gain  for  him  the  unimaginable  bliss 
of  immortality,  they  would  not  now  occupy  a  position 
in  the  world  which  none  more  keenly  than  themselves 
knows  to  be  unworthy. 

“The  one  all-important  doctrine  of  the  Early 
Church,”  says  Mr.  Cotterill  in  A  History  of  Art ,  “was 
that  of  Eternal  Life.  ...  It  is  noticeable  that,  whether 
from  a  Greek-like  repugnance  to  painful  subjects  in 
art  or  because  joy  at  the  thought  of  Paradise  and  re- 


V/ 


IMMORTALITY  159 

union  caused  the  Atonement  and  the  Passion  to  affect 
them  far  less  profoundly  than  they  affected  more  ascetic 
or  more  sensational  natures  in  later  days,  there  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Catacombs  no  representation  of  the  Cruci¬ 
fixion,  nor  of  any  martyrdom  or  massacre — subjects 
which  afterwards,  perhaps  in  consequence  of  Lombard 
and  other  Northern  influences,  became  so  common  in 
Italian  painting.” 

No  discipline  could  be  more  disastrous,  I  take  leave 
to  say,  to  the  mind  of  a  just  man  seeking  to  become  a 
prophet  of  the  Christian  religion  than  a  course  of  study 
in  the  average  theological  college  of  the  present  day. 
From  such  a  gateway  to  the  religious  life  most  men  of 
character  turn  back  either  with  sorrow  or  disgust. 
Those  who  face  the  discipline  learn  that  their  prepara¬ 
tion  for  the  gospel  of  immortality  consists  in  strangling 
their  intellectual  conscience,  learning  a  few  tricks  of 
theological  disputation,  and  harnessing  their  spiritual 
enthusiasms  to  the  three-wheeled  coach  of  ceremonial 
priestcraft.  They  find  themselves  ministers  of  Christ  in 
a  world  which  has  no  use  for  them  or  for  Him — the 
Christ  of  their  theology. 

Surely  there  is  a  grandeur  in  the  Christ  of  God  which 
has  escaped  them.  Surely,  if  they  had  penetrated  His 
secret,  they  too  would  be  life  changers,  they  too  would 
bring  life  and  immortality  to  light.  But  these  men,  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  them,  the  majority  so  fatal  to 
religious  vitality,  have  not  sought  to  harmonise  their 
wills  with  the  Will  of  God,  have  not  risen  to  the  heights 
of  spiritual  desire,  where  the  will  of  the  creature  finds 
itself  in  the  Will  of  its  Creator;  rather  have  they  la- 


160 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


boured,  with  an  intellectual  dishonesty  perilous  to  spirit¬ 
ual  health,  merely  to  out-talk  with  the  worst  notions 
of  an  inadequate  theology  the  surest  facts  of  material 
science.  To  be  faithful  to  a  tradition,  to  bolster  up  the 
ceremonies  of  a  superstition  as  dead  for  all  honest  men 
as  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy  or  the  rites  of  Dionysus, 
this  is  to  them  the  religious  life,  this  the  end  and  object 
of  evolution.  “Many  shall  say  to  me  in  that  day,  Lord, 
Lord.  .  .  .” 

We  may  see  in  such  men  as  these,  who  commit,  we 
must  suppose,  one  of  the  most  dreadful  of  sins  in  mis¬ 
representing  the  love  and  justice  of  God  and  in  obscur¬ 
ing  the  true  purpose  of  Jesus,  a  confirmation  of  F.  B.’s 
teaching  that  sin  is  a  refusal  of  the  will  to  conform  it¬ 
self  to  the  Will  of  God.  Science,  criticism,  philosophy,  his¬ 
tory,  tell  these  men  that  they  are  wrong ;  they  themselves 
are  not  only  conscious  of  failure,  but  publicly  confess 
and  lament  their  discreditable  impotence;  yet  nothing 
can  persuade  them  that  they  are  not  the  oracles  of 
God.  Obstinately  do  they  stick  to  their  opinions,  stub¬ 
bornly  do  they  refuse  to  submit  themselves  to  the  Truth 
which  alone  can  make  them  a  power,  to  the  Service  which 
alone  can  set  them  free.  Their  position  is  precisely  that 
of  the  traditionalist  and  the  ceremonialist  in  the  days  of 
Jesus,  and  they  cannot  see  it.  Their  eyes  are  blinded 
and  their  hearts  hardened.  Never  once  have  they  real¬ 
ised  that  the  crisis  in  spiritual  life  arises  only  when  the 
mortal,  hungering  and  thirsting  after  the  things  of  im¬ 
mortality,  empties  himself  of  all  intellectual  conceits, 
all  theological  prejudices,  and  all  moral  egoisms,  be¬ 
seeching  the  Eternal  Righteousness,  with  the  whole  heart 
and  the  whole  will,  for  a  communion  which  needs  no  rite 


IMMORTALITY 


161 


and  a  companionship  which  is  itself  both  a  religion  and 
a  theology. 

The  original  purpose  of  God,  says  Professor  Simp¬ 
son,  is  complete  self-communication  to  a  being  who  can 
come  into  fellowship  with  Him.  There  is  a  moment  in 
the  life  of  a  man,  a  moment  of  choice,  a  moment  of  de¬ 
cision,  when  this  original  purpose  of  God  is  achieved. 
According  to  the  faith  of  the  individual,  and  according 
to  the  measure  of  his  desire,  he  receives  a  consciousness 
of  God  which  bestows  upon  him  an  entirely  new  sense  of 
reality. 

This,  at  all  events,  is  the  testimony  of  those  who  have 
been  marvellously  changed  by  conversion  and  themselves 
have  become  changers  of  human  life.  They  all  agree, 
whatever  their  various  theological  inheritance,  that  any 
form  of  wilfulness  in  the  mind  is  a  vital  bar  to  a  vital 
consciousness  of  God;  that  as  soon  as  the  mind,  with 
real  honesty  and  a  consuming  desire  for  that  divine  con¬ 
sciousness,  hates  its  sin  and  turns  to  God,  the  will  is 
new  born;  and,  finally,  that  henceforth  life  for  them 
becomes  transfigured  by  a  joy  of  which  they  had  hither¬ 
to  no  conception,  a  joy  which  seems  to  consist  of,  first, 
a  poignant  conviction  of  the  reality  of  God’s  response  to 
their  craving,  second,  an  entire  sense  of  freedom  from 
a  division  in  personality ;  and  third,  a  sense  of  creative 
power  in  the  lives  of  other  men,  making  for  a  like  happi¬ 
ness  with  their  own. 

Ruskin  used  to  say  that  he  did  not  wonder  at  what 
men  suffered,  but  at  what  they  lost.  The  idea  that  im¬ 
mortality  is  something  to  be  attained  by  the  purified 
human  will  hungering  and  thirsting  after  the  perfection 


162 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


of  God  helps  one  to  realise  the  tremendous  significance 
of  Christ’s  question,  “For  what  shall  it  profit  a  man  if 
he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?” 

Also  it  helps  one,  I  think,  to  see  a  depth  of  meaning 
in  that  familiar  phrase — too  familiar  perhaps — The 
Peace  of  God.  For  is  it  not  apparent  that  if  mankind 
could  be  brought  to  believe  that  the  attainment  of  per¬ 
sonal  immortality  is  the  object  and  consummation  of 
all  the  travail  of  earth’s  ages,  if  this  knowledge  were 
as  generally  received,  let  us  say,  as  the  knowledge  of 
physical  evolution,  is  it  not  clear  to  us  that  man  would 
soon  make  an  end  of  all  those  brawlings  of  materialism 
which  in  parliaments  and  market-places  war  against  the 
peace  of  his  soul?  Is  it  not  certain  that  in  the  unity 
of  so  grand  and  dignified  a  faith  a  peace  hitherto  un¬ 
known  on  earth  would  inspire  our  politics,  our  com¬ 
merce,  our  manners,  and  our  art?  No  brotherhood  of 
man,  it  would  seem,  is  possible — nay,  is  conceivable — 
until  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  of  one  mind  concern¬ 
ing  the  purpose  of  existence. 

Therefore  with  what  impatience,  and  with  how  des¬ 
pairing  a  regret,  must  those  who  long  for  the  Peace  of 
God  see  the  Churches  wasting  their  energies  on  matters 
which  divide  rather  than  unite,  neglecting  for  teachings 
which  obscure,  depress,  and  after  two  thousand  years 
of  repetition  make  no  difference  to  man  or  nation,  the 
one  great  central  teaching  of  their  Master  which  saves 
the  individual  and  glorifies  the  human  race? 

“In  some  kind  of  a  direct  relation  to  Him,”  says  Pro¬ 
fessor  Simpson,  “men  of  all  races  and  civilisations  have 
found  that  they  are  freed  from  the  tormenting  internal 
dualism  so  characteristic  of  humanity,  and  begin  to  be¬ 
come  masters  of  themselves  through  some  moral  energy 


IMMORTALITY 


163 


that  is  associated  with  Him.  He  gives  liberty  to  the 
captive;  the  spiritual  life  of  men,  as  often  indeed  their 
physical  life  also  in  some  measure,  is  renewed  in  every 
aspect  through  this  relation  with  Him.  It  is  a  trans¬ 
formation  that  reaches  to  the  very  core  of  a  man’s  being, 
to  the  self  that  has  been  struggling  for  affirmation  and 
control;  a  spiritual  Power  is  at  work  which  is  an  ex¬ 
pression  of  this  new  relation.  It  may  be  difficult  to  ex¬ 
plain  the  fact,  but  it  is  there.  Throughout  the  world 
there  is  an  increasing  race  of  men — the  word  is  not  too 
strong,  although  the  characteristics  are  not  physical, 
but  spiritual — who  by  an  act  of  will,  bringing  themselves 
into  relation  with  Him,  attain  to  yet  greater  liberty, 
and  begin  to  develop  a  quality  of  life  which,  if  His  words 
are  true,  is  eternal.” 

For  many  thousands  of  years  the  great  rivers  of  the 
world  flooded  to  the  sea  while  man  bore  his  burden  on 
his  back  and  carried  a  dim  candle  through  the  long  win¬ 
ter  night  of  his  ignorance.  Then  came  one  who  saw 
the  power  in  those  waters,  and  drew  that  power  from 
them  as  they  passed  on  their  way  to  the  ocean,  making 
it  drive  his  carriage  and  light  his  city. 

From  the  beginning  of  time  this  earth  has  moved 
round  the  sun  through  an  immovable  and  atomless  ether, 
invisible  to  the  eye,  inaudible  to  the  ear,  intangible  to  the 
hand.  Not  until  yesterday  did  man  perceive  this  super¬ 
atmosphere  of  life,  and  now  he  makes  it  carry  his  words 
from  one  side  of  the  world  to  the  other,  speaking  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  answered  at  the  same  moment 
from  the  other. 

So  men  have  lived  with  the  Presence  of  God  always 
in  their  midst  from  the  dawn  of  the  moral  consciousness, 


164 


MORE  TWICE-BORN  MEN 


a  Power  above  all  other  powers,  a  Force  above  all  other 
forces,  an  Energy  above  all  other  energies.  They  have 
seen  the  glory  of  these  moving  waters  and  worshipped 
the  starlight  brought  to  their  struggling  souls  by  this 
invisible  ether,  but  few  have  seen  in  that  Presence  of  the 
Divine  a  Power  able  to  change  the  whole  face  of  human 
existence. 

The  future  of  civilisation,  rising  at  this  moment  from 
the  ruins  of  materialism,  would  seem  to  lie  in  an  intelli¬ 
gent  use  by  man  of  this  ultimate  source  of  spiritual 
Power.  To  make  use  of  that  Power  it  appears  necessary 
that  the  human  will  must  be  sounding  the  same  note, 
pursuing  the  same  end,  working  in  the  same  spirit.  One 
of  the  simplest  sayings  of  Jesus  makes  it  clear  that 
man’s  ability  to  draw  upon  this  inexhaustible  and  im¬ 
measurable  source  of  eternal  life  is  determined  by  his 
desire  for  it:  “Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness ;  for  they  shall  be  filled.” 


THE  END 


Jl  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

G.  P.  PUTNAM  S  SONS 

* 


Complete  Catalogues  sent 
on  application 


Painted  Windows 

By 

A  Gentleman  with  a  Duster 

8 °.  12  Illustrations 

The  author  of  Mirrors  of  Downing  Street , 
and  The  Glass  of  Fashion,  whose  words  of 
inspiring  truth  have  spread  to  every  part  of 
the  world  where  English  is  spoken,  reveals  in 
P ainted  Windows  the  chaos  of  opinion  which 
exists  in  the  modern  Church.  But  there  is  no 
pulling  down, — the  book  is  constructive,  hope¬ 
ful;  destroying  only  that  which  cumbers  the 
ground,  and  destroying  with  brilliant  and 
amazing  surety. 

“PAINTED  WINDOWS,”  says  the  Philadelphia 
Public  Ledger,  “is  no  laugh  in  the  void,  no  flash  in  the 
dark,  but  a  searching  criticism  of  men  and  the 
church  in  an  hour  that  calls  for  spiritual  leadership 
and  power.” 


G.  P.  Putnam’s  Sons 

New  York  London 


